'ccuunsrs Travels 



Willy Reichel 







Class. 4UL 



Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Prof. WILLY REICHEL. 



An 
Occultist's Travels 

BY 

WILLY REICHEL 

Professeur honoraire a la Faculte des Sciences 
Magnetiques de Paris. 



Author of "Der Heilmagnetismus, seine Bezie- 
hung zum Somnambulismus" {Berlin, 1896)/ 
"A Travers le Monde" {Paris); "Kreuz und 
Quer durch die Welt" {Leipzig); "Occult 
Experiences" {London), etc., etc. 




R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 

18 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK 






I 

rooies rtecs 

SEP 3 »aob 

ULAS8 CC- -■ 

JOfttB.I 



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Copyright 1908 
By WILLY REICHEL 



An Occultist'* Travels 



PKEFACE. 

The first portion of the present work has 
already appeared in Paris under the title of 
"A Travers le Monde" (Frederic Gittler, pub- 
lisher), and in Germany under that of "Kreuz 
und Quer durch die Welt" (Leipzig, Oswald 
Mutze), also in abridged form in England, as 
"Occult Experiences" (London, Office of 
Light), 

The second portion is new, and I hope that 
the book will meet with as favourable a recep- 
tion in the United States, where I have lived 
for the last five years, as has been the case in 
the above-mentioned countries. 

I am a devotee of experimental occultism as 
understood by Professor Zollner of Leipzig, the 
late Dr. du Prel of Munich, and Baron Hellen- 
bach of Vienna, and I hold the view that in 
our age Natural Science can only be convinced 
as to the existence of a Future Life by experi- 
ment. 

I am well aware that Theosophy is familiar 



ii PREFACE 



with the phenomena of Spiritualism, and ac- 
knowledges them and expects them to exist, 
but Theosophy has to do only with ethics, 
philosophy, and its own practical development; 
and I hold that as yet we have not arrived at 
this stage of advancement. 

The academic science of to-day still disputes 
the basis, the very existence of these phenomena, 
but every little contribution adds to the great 
structure of Truth. 

Willy Keichel. 

Hamilton, Bermuda Islands, July, 1908. 



An Occultist's Travels. 



After the strain upon my nerves in the year 
1900, caused by the previous brutal persecu- 
tions on the part of certain representatives of 
the medical world in Germany, together with 
the opposition of the clergy, as an expounder of 
animal magnetism and occult and spiritualistic 
science, had reached a degree which compelled 
relaxation, I set out on my travels in order to 
forget these troubles and to continue my stud- 
ies. I have traversed France, England, Italy, 
Africa, America from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific, Japan, China, the Philippines and Ha- 
waiian Islands, and will now undertake to 
sketch briefly the new impressions received by 
me during these extensive journeys, in doing 
which I assume that the kind reader will take 

9 



10 An Occultist's Travels. 

some interest in my personal experiences, espe- 
cially those in the occult sphere. 

I am fifty years old, and there are probably 
not many men who, from their earliest youth, 
have travelled so extensively. Experts in 
chiromancy (or palmistry, as the science is 
called in England and America) have told me 
that the lines of my hand showed a predestina- 
tion for long journeys, especially the well- 
known chiromancer, Mme. de Thebes in Paris, 
whom I visited twice. By the time I was twenty 
I had travelled through the Riviera, Italy, Aus- 
tria, Hungary, and Russia. And I have pleas- 
ant memories of the time when, in the ruins of 
Pompeii, I read Bulwer's exciting romances, 
"The Last Days of Pompeii/' and "Zanoni," 
which latter work ought not to remain unknown 
to any adherent of transcendental beliefs. 

Since then I have passed through fourteen 
years of conflict, especially the last ten, during 
which I struggled hard for the recognition of 
animal magnetism.* 

But, during this time, I often visited my 



*See my book, Healing Magnetism, Its Relations to 
Somnambulism and Hypnotism (Berlin, K. Siegis- 
mund), 1896, 3d edition. 



An Occultist's Travels. 11 

favourite spot, Monte Carlo, on the Riviera, 
which I could do without injury, as I never 
gamble. To any one who leads a life in which 
mentality predominates, this jewel of nature is 
a spot whose beauty materially lightens for him 
the conditions of intensifying the action of the 
mind. Often and often have I sat on a bench, 
high up on the cliffs of Monaco, olive, orange, 
and lemon trees seeming to smile at me, when 
I fixed my thoughts upon the mysterious or- 
ganization of human nature. So I visited 
Monte Carlo, and again feelings which I be- 
lieved long buried awoke within me. I then 
sought various mediums in Nice and Paris, 
without, however, experiencing anything that 
could interest wider circles. 

In January of the year 1902, which brought 
me many psychical storms, I set out for Egypt, 
boarding at Trieste the Austrian Lloyd steamer 
"Semiramis," on which I reached Alexandria in 
four days. A storm off the Ionian Islands and 
while passing Crete, had refreshed my wearied 
spirit, for I love the elements of nature and 
am entirely free from seasickness ; but unfortu- 
nately Poseidon did not let my servant) with 
whom I shared my cabin, go free. 



12 An Occultist's Travels. 

From Alexandria I went to Cairo (Grand 
Continental Hotel), Luxor, Thebes, Assouan, 
and the island of Philse, which belongs to 
Nubia. At Elephantine, an island in the Nile 
opposite Assouan, a desert sand storm surprised 
me, for one does not walk unmolested beneath 
palm trees. I stood with reverence in ancient 
Thebes — now a heap of ruins covered with the 
sand of the desert — before the tombs of Ramses 
and the Colossus of Memnon ; and the gigantic 
foundations of the temples in Karnak again 
showed me how everything in this world, even 
though it seems built for eternity, must submit 
to the lot of transitoriness.* 

What I experienced in "Babylon," Cairo, 
and the pyramids of Ghizeh, does not belong 
here. The East is so utterly unlike the West, 
and my spirit so sorely needed the change ! But 
the rides through the desert, though often very 
fatiguing at a temperature of 110 degrees in 
February, relieved me from rheumatism, which 
I had brought with me from Europe. Besides, 

*In the vast cemetery of Sakkara, near ancient Mem- 
phis, besides the tombs of Ti and Mera, I regretted that 
I did not have with me a good trance or speech medium, 
which regret continued as I sailed up and down the 
sacred Nile, and passed those ancient abodes of civiliza- 
tion, Denderah, Edfu, Komombo and Esneh. 



An Occultist's Travels. 13 

on this journey I made a dear friend, an Aus- 
trian counsel and doctor of jurisprudence. He 
was my constant companion, and we became 
deeply attached to each other; it is so seldom 
that we meet any one with whom we really 
agree. 

In March, at Port Said, I went on board the 
North German Lloyd steamer "Prussia," which 
was coming from China, and in five days it car- 
ried me past Crete, Sicily, Capri, and Naples 
to Genoa. In Genoa, news awaited me which 
summoned me to London. Prom tropical heat 
I now crossed the snow ridges of Mont Cenis 
to Paris, and then went over the Channel to 
Dover and London. I visited there mediums 
recommended to me by Light, but again with- 
out any result worth mentioning. In May and 
June I was here and there in Germanv, until 
at last the time had come which I had long 
anticipated, when I was to leave Europe for a 
long period and visit the New "World. Circum- 
stances of no farther interest were now in so 
satisfactory a form, that I resolved to set out 
on the voyage across the ocean. On the 10th of 
July, 1902, I boarded at Cuxhaven the "Prince 
Bismarck" of the Hamburg-Amerika line, and 



14 An Occultist's Travels. 

on the 18th of July arrived safely in New 
York. I had previously visited many harbours : 
Genoa, Trieste, Marseilles, Naples, Brindisi, 
Alexandria, Port Said, Dover, Calais, Cher- 
bourg, Kiel, Cronstadt, St. Petersburg, etc., but 
not one of them compares in magnificence with 
the harbour of New York. The first sight of it 
is simply overwhelming ! Mr. Hermann Hand- 
rich, of the Swiss Consulate, most pleasantly 
known as a contributor to German psychical re- 
views, as well as by his hospitality, received me 
cordially, and took me to a medium whose spe- 
cialty is direct writing on a tablet. I am posi- 
tive that this is a genuine medium, especially 
as Mr. Handrich, one of the best practical ex- 
perts, was himself present, but the purport of 
the writing received did not impress me. I did 
not expect anything remarkable, since I have 
found by experience that it is very rare to ob- 
tain much at a first seance, even with the best 
mediums. To do so certainly requires patience. 
When I reached New York in July, most of 
the mediums were in the country, and so Mr. 
Handrich advised me to visit the Spiritualist 
"Camp" at Lily Dale. I left New York on the 
night train, passed through Poughkeepsie 



An Occultist's Travels. 15 

(where the seer, Andrew Jackson Davis, was 
born) in the handsome, well arranged Pullman 
car, then went on to Niagara Falls, and the next 
noon reached Dunkirk on Lake Erie, from 
which a small branch road goes to Lily Dale. 
Violent rains had washed away the embank- 
ment of the road, so after waiting nearly six 
hours at the little station, I determined to take 
a carriage, in order at least to reach Lily Dale 
by night. 

The liberty of Spiritualism here is entirely 
different from what it is in Europe ! Charm- 
ingly situated on Cassadaga Lake, MT. Y., 
the little wooden houses of the mediums stretch 
in various directions; perhaps fifty of all de- 
scriptions live here together. Before each 
house is a sign, stating the kind of power the 
occupant possesses, and no one disturbs them in 
the exercise of their calling; on the contrary 
strangers come here from all quarters, seeking 
the mediums which seem to them best suited to 
their purpose. I can say that I was most kindly 
received, perhaps partly because my name was 
not unknown there, as I have contributed a 
great deal for several years to American publi- 
cations. So I visited many trance, speech, and 



16 An Occultist's Travels. 

materialization mediums. True, I did not ob- 
tain much here, at least concerning the question 
of identity, which perhaps can never be proved, 
aside from the fact that it is probably extremely 
difficult for foreign intelligencies, that is, in 
this case the Germans who were closely con- 
nected with me, to put themselves, quickly and 
without ceremony, into communication with 
American mediums, whose views and compre- 
hension of life are in many respects wholly dif- 
ferent from theirs. 

I have seen at the seances of the mediums 
Winans and A. Normann, within two hours, in 
the presence of perhaps thirty people, probably 
twelve different materialized phantoms, large 
and small, Indians, Englishmen, and Ameri- 
cans, each of whom appealed to some one pres- 
ent to prove himself a relative or friend. I, 
too, was summoned, but I could not recognize 
the being in question as the person he alleged 
himself to be. I will enter no farther into de- 
tails, as I am writing no scientific treatise, but 
merelv a brief account of travel. I also made 
the acquaintance in Lily Dale of Mr. Bach, the 
estimable editor of the Sunflower, then pub- 
lished there, who advised me very strongly to 



An Occultist's Travels. 17 

visit the Bangs Sisters in Chicago (654 West 
Adams street) which I did, and did not regret 
it 

Miss Bangs possesses a very peculiar power 
as a medium, which I had never witnessed be- 
fore. A letter is written to some intelligence 
from whom one desires to receive a communica- 
tion, a few empty sheets are enclosed for a re- 
ply, then the envelope is sealed with one's own 
seal and put between two slates on a table in 
the bright sunshine. Miss Bangs, after placing 
an inkstand and a penholder on the slate, sits 
down opposite with folded arms. The noise of 
writing is now distinctly heard, then rapping, 
and then the slate may be taken. My letter lay 
exactly as I had left it, with the seal uninjured. 
I opened it, and all the empty pages were filled 
with writing in ink, and all this was done at 
noon, in broad daylight! In spite of all scep- 
ticism, I could discover no fraud there, and, 
besides, Miss Bangs enjoys a very good reputa- 
tion in initiated circles. 

From Chicago I set out on my journey to 
California, which I dreaded slightly, for trav- 
elling four nights and three days uninterrupt- 
edly does not suit every one. I took the shortest 



18 An Occultist's Travels. 

route, by the "Union Pacific." Nothing but 
endless prairies — enough to drive one to de- 
spair ! Through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wy- 
oming, Nevada — a cheerless wilderness! The 
mountain chain presents no variety, since in 
this tract the land rises very gradually until 
one has reached the Sierra Nevada, whose rocks 
are grotesque in form. At last the train draws 
near California, and now vegetation seems en- 
tirely changed. I did not remain long in San 
Francisco, as I wanted to go to Southern Cali- 
fornia. After a further ride of eighteen hours 
one reaches Los Angeles. This is the place 
where Frau Valeska Topfer, a medium of great 
renown in Germany, spent the last four years of 
her life. I arrived there the 1st of August, 
1902. It is still a comparatively new city, at 
the junction of the Southern Pacific and the 
Santa Fe railroads. On this account its growth 
has been incredibly rapid, even for American 
conditions. All kinds of tropical plants — only 
the dates and bananas do not ripen — grow there 
in unexpected magnificence, which is increased 
by countless humming-birds. 

Situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, 
three quarters of an hour distant from the 



An Occultist's Travels. 19 

ocean, it possesses a climate superior to that of 
the Riviera, for I could not endure the heat 
there in April, while in Los Angeles, after 
noon, there is a sea breeze from the ocean which 
renders the nights cool. 

I should like to tell a great deal about the 
magnificent natural advantages of Southern 
California, but I lack the pen of a Ludwig 
Pietsch. The Americans have treated me with 
the utmost cordiality, and are generally very 
courteous and hospitable ; I have not a word to 
say on that score. The country, however, lacks 
the Art, and especially the poetry, of which the 
German is so proud. There, too, I sought out 
various mediums. California is the land of 
the medium and the "Magnetic Healer;" a 
Spiritualist camp was just being formed. At a 
materialization medium's I visited there (Mr. 
George Brower), I saw probably eight phan- 
toms within an hour who all appeared in white 
veils, whereas the figures at the Normann's in 
Lily Dale, previously mentioned, showed them- 
selves in the clothes they wore in life. It is 
not clear to me why the spirits in Los Angeles 
appeared in one way and those in Lily Dale in 
another. 



20 An Occultist's Travels. 

By the advice of many acquaintances I vis- 
ited, in August, 1903, the famous Yosemite Na- 
tional Park and the Mariposa Big Trees in 
Northern California. The Yosemite Valley 
lies about 4000 feet above the sea, and its 
mountains, Clouds' Rest, for instance, attain a 
height of 9912 feet. As almost everything is 
made possible in America, the Southern Pacific 
railroad has built a little hotel on Glacier Point 
(7201 feet high), which can be reached only on 
horseback along sheer precipices and water- 
falls. Here I passed the night. Never shall I 
forget the view from this point over those 
grotesque peaks. A ride down of about ten 
hours, in a stage, brings one to the Mariposa 
Big Tree Grove. These primeval giants are 
difficult to describe. Whoever has not seen them 
himself will believe it a fairy tale to hear of 
trees 405 feet tall and 110 feet in circumfer- 
ence. Professor David Starr Jordan, of Stan- 
ford University, believes that some of these trees 
— they are called Sequoia, a species of pine — 
are over 8000 years old. The Pyramid of 
Cheops, which I saw in Egypt in 1902, was 
built about 2170 B.C. A scholar has made the 
assertion that these trees had bark a foot thick 



An Occultist's Travels. 21 

when Cheops' hundred thousand men began 
their thirty years' labour in building this pyra- 
mid. 

Having returned to Southern California, vari- 
ous circumstances compelled me, at the end of 
September, to go to San Francisco. I went by 
ship, which, leaving the harbour, Port Los 
Angeles (three-quarters of an hour distant from 
the city of that name), reaches the capital of 
California in about twenty-five hours. Whales 
and flying fish were our constant companions. 
The publisher of the Philosophical Journal, J. 
Munsell Chase (Dr. ISTewman, the former ed- 
itor, died in April), gave me, at my request for 
the addresses of first-class mediums, the names 
of Mrs. Wermouth (416 Golden Gate avenue) 
as an excellent trance medium, and Mr. C. V. 
Miller (1084 Bush street) as the best materiali- 
zation medium. Mrs. Wermouth gave good 
proofs ; she told me at once that I possessed an 
unusually strong and pure magnetic power, in 
connection with which I will remark that I had 
not previously mentioned to her either my name 
or my profession. Mrs. S. Seal (1424 Market 
street) is also very good as a trance and healing 
medium. 



22 An Occultist's Travels. 

Mr. Miller must be described more fully, 
since my experiences with him surpassed 
everything that I had previously known, at least 
in his character as a materialization medium.* 
Mr. Miller then owned a business in Japanese 
art wares and old pictures at 568 Geary street, 
and his appearance, with his modest bearing, is 
very prepossessing. After a long interval he 
had just begun again to give seances. I men- 
tioned neither my name, nor my occupation, 
because he did not ask for them. On Thurs- 
day, October 1st, 1903, I went to him and 
found there twenty-five persons, both men and 
women. His so-called cabinet was a bow-win- 
dow of three sections, with a curtain of black 
material, facing directly upon the street. When 
I entered, the curtain was drawn back, and I 
investigated everything in the most thorough 
manner. To come in from the outside was ut- 
terly impossible, as Bush street is well fre- 
quented and fully lighted by lamps, so that any 
attempt to enter from without would be im- 



*See also my article in La Revue Spirite, Paris, Au- 
gust, 1904; "Materializations," in The Harbinger of 
Light, Melbourne, October, 1904; also in Le Messager, 
Liege, Dec. 15th, 1904, and in The Banner of Light, 
Boston, Jan. 7th, 1905. 




C. V. MILLER. 



An Occultist's Travels. 23 

practicable on account of the pedestrians con- 
stantly passing. Miller first requested every one 
present to search this bow-window thoroughly, 
and he really made so pleasant, simple and 
frank an impression that harmony, which is a 
principal matter in such seances, was not diffi- 
cult to establish. After several persons had 
changed their places, which is usually neces- 
sary at such seances for the proper combination 
of the fluid emanations of those present, he 
placed himself before the curtain, which di- 
rectly afterwards was opened, and now phan- 
tom after phantom appeared, whom he, without 
being in a trance, took by the hand and first 
asked for the name, which was instantly given. 
After the appearance of the second phantom he 
said suddenly: "Here is a Spirit, who calls 
himself So-and-so" — he mentioned a name 
known to me — "and says that Moppel, a dog 
that is still alive, remembers you vividly, and is 

ft " V J J 

faithfully guarding your home." Now for the 
explanation. At my temporary home in South- 
ern California, I had a very faithful white 
Alaska dog, which I had left there, and to 
which I had given the name of "Moppel." Xo 
one in this seance knew me, or was aware that 



24 An Occultist's Travels. 

I was living at that time in Southern California 
and owned a dog named Moppel. Besides, it is 
a German dog-name, and Miller does not un- 
derstand a word of German ! The spirit, who 
said this, was, as I have said, known to me by 
name and seemed to be very familiar with my 
private affairs. 

After a number of spirits had first mentioned 
their names, they summoned several of those 
present and talked with them. Some of those 
asked for w T ere not present, upon which the 
spirits withdrew with w T ords of regret. Mr. 
Miller then stated that he would retire into the 
cabinet, because then the phantoms have more 
power, and from it they would go to those pres- 
ent. And so it was! Scarcely four minutes 
had elapsed, when the curtain opened entirely 
and Mr. Miller was seen asleep, with six fully 
developed phantoms in white robes beside him, 
who all clasped hands. Gradually the different 
phantoms came out of the cabinet, went to those 
present, and talked eagerly with them; two 
spoke German. As I heard later, they were 
conversing with Germans. Suddenly I heard 
distinctly, loudly, and clearly a name which I 
knew very well, from a phantom who wished to 



An Occultist's Travels. 25 

speak to me. Enough — they are private mat- 
ters, concerning which I must keep silent. An- 
other phantom came close to me, bowed, and I 
recognized it ; his name, which he then uttered, 
corresponded. Almost at the same moment that 
the last phantom withdrew from our circle, Mr. 
Miller came out of the cabinet. There was 
ample light during the whole seance. The fol- 
lowing phenomenon was also extremely inter- 
esting : a white ball, which looked like muslin, 
hovered a short time in front of the curtain, 
then sank before the eyes of all, and in scarcely 
two minutes a new spirit figure formed itself.* 
The dematerializations principally took place 
in full view, in front of the curtain. I can only 
say that during many years I have seen a great 
deal, but nothing like this, and I only regret 
that Germany does not possess such a medium. 
Unfortunately I was obliged to go away, but I 
hoped at no distant time to see Mr. Miller again. 



*The same phenomenon, only taking a longer time 
for development, is described by Mme. d'Esperance in 
her work, Shadowland. See also Uebersinnliche Welt 
(Supernatural World), Berlin, Max Rahn, 1900, p. 67; 
also Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, A Defence of Modem 
Spiritualism, and Mary Karadja, Spiritistische Phae- 
nomene (Spiritualistic Phenomena), Leipsic, M. Spohr, 
p. 15, etc. 



26 r An Occultist's Travels. 

I subsequently read in the April number of 
Psychical Studies, Leipzig, of 1903 (page 
243) a notice of Mr. Miller; Professor 
Maier correctly points out in a footnote 
that Miller was not bound at that time, 
and I am of the same opinion as K. Seithel, 
Sr. (Psychical Studies, 1900, p. 578) that 
binding is by no means a humane method 
of control, and phenomena occurring when it 
is used will be no more uncontrovertible than 
without it. At this extremely interesting se- 
ance I only observed, and immediately wrote 
down truthfully what I saw and heard; I ex- 
amined the cabinet thoroughly before and after 
the seance; I saw Miller almost constantly 
along with the phantoms, and perceived no sign 
of apparatus or trickery. Yet Baron Von Hel- 
lenbach is right when he says in his Vorurteile 
der Menschheit (Prejudices of Mankind), pub- 
lished by Mutze in Leipzig, III, p. 239 : "There 
is a scepticism, which can even surpass in stu- 
pidity the ignorant superstitions of a moun- 
tain charcoal-burner." 

In December, 1903, I spent some time in 
San Diego, the last city this side the Mexican 
frontier; the Coronado Hotel there, built on 



f An Occultist's Travels. 27 

Coronado Beach, is probably the most aristo- 
cratic place on the coast of Southern Califor- 
nia. Near San Diego (a carriage drive of an 
hour and a half) at Point Loma, the Theoso- 
phists have built a wonderful monastery, from 
which one has a magnificent view of the wide 
ocean, San Diego Bay, and the Mexican moun- 
tains. In winter, after the heat has somewhat 
diminished, everything grows here in tropical 
glory of colour. The wonderful bignonias and 
the superb bougainvilleas with their thou- 
sands of yellowish red and blue flowers here 
twine around almost every one of the little 
houses, which, of course, on account of the fre- 
quent earthquakes, are built of wood, as they 
are nearly everywhere in California. In this 
institution Theosophy is taught according to 
the ideas of Mme. Blavatsky. Point Loma 
Homestead is the name of the monastery, in 
which any one who is seeking rest and recupera- 
tion can find accommodation at the rate of three 
dollars a day. 

In January, I spent some time in the San 
Gabriel Canon, a part of the South Californian 
Sierra Nevada, and there learned the hard 
calling of the gold miner. Here the principal 



28 An Occultist's Travels. 

methods are the so-called dry digging (digging 
in sandbanks, hills, mountains) and the ciot- 
ing digging (from a species of animal "ciot"), 
found everywhere in this region, which digs in 
the earth. Strict laws prevail in these moun- 
tains. Every thief is pursued and shot without 
mercy. The gold miner, who lives in a tent, to 
which every one has easy access, spends the 
clay in his mine, and his tent is usually filled 
with stores of provisions, which are brought on 
horses from Ions; distances. Anv one can take 
from them, but he must leave a note there, stat- 
ing who he is, and what he has carried away, 
or "to horse/' — the search for him begins, and 
woe betide him! I spent the winter in these 
mountains very comfortably, rode to the mines 
almost daily, often helped in washing the gold, 
and met among these people very excellent men, 
who hospitably offered me everything they pos- 
sessed (dried canned goods and fried bacon). 
There was only one Indian, whose Spanish- 
English-Indian dialect was difficult to under- 
stand, whose insolence forced me to hold a 
loaded revolver under his nose ; but I had been 
warned against him. I have often met this 
race in various parts of the United States and 



'An Occultist's Travels. 29 

in Mexico, but have almost always found them 
peaceful. 

The rest of the time I spent in trout-fishing 
and hunting. Here the California bears may 
still be found, and in summer numerous ser- 
pents, especially the dangerous rattlesnake. 
The temperature in these mountains in January 
is about the same as it is in May in Germany. 
My equipment was shoes with spiked soles, a 
revolver in my pocket, and an iron-shod cane; 
many days I rode on horseback for six or eight 
hours through mountain streams and over 
peaks, and then in the evening, in Follows 
Camp, where I lived, made a fire in the little 
iron stove, for at night it grew cold. I had with 
me a few works by Schopenhauer, Hellenbach, 
du Prel, as well as several volumes of "Psychi- 
cal Studies" and the "Transcendental World" 
so that I could also keep my mind employed. 



30 An Occultist's Travels. 



II 



From December until the end of March Los 
Angeles is crowded with invalids and people 
who wish to escape the cold weather of the 
eastern states. It is a five days' journey from 
New York, but one is rewarded as soon as the 
Rocky Mountains are crossed; for the climate 
of Southern California in winter is about the 
same as I found in Sicily, only the magnificent 
floral display is greater in California. As soon 
as the first rain begins to fall in December or 
January, after an interval of nearly seven 
months, everything commences to grow with 
wonderful luxuriance. With these strangers a 
number of mediums usually arrive, and so now 
came a "Count Gabriel Dizara," who calls him- 
self "Anglo-Hindu Palmist and Medium, Mem- 
ber of the Ancient Order of Occult Scientists, 
Psychical Research Society of America," and 
President of the "Balfour Institute of Science" 



An Occultist's Travels. 31 

in New York. He boasts of knowing the se- 
crets of the Lama priests, and will allow him- 
self to be buried six days, like some Hindu 
fakirs. At any rate, he is an interesting man. 
I wrote in my lodgings a number of questions, 
put them in a closed envelope, and went to him. 
His companion burned before my eyes this 
closed envelope in a second room before I had 
seen Mr. Dizara at all, with the remark that 
these questions would now be considered and 
answered by the "Professor/' without my hav- 
ing said a word. Directly after I was called 
into another room, and stood opposite to this 
man, who clasped my left hand and re- 
peated all my questions successively, with ac- 
curate pronunciation of proper names, at the 
same time answering them. Whether his state- 
ments will prove correct, the future must de- 
termine. I can certify that no one had read my 
questions, and that they were previously burned 
in their original condition before my eyes in 
another room. I am outlining all that I ex- 
perienced very briefly, in order not to bring 
upon myself the reproach of prolixity ; but after 
my experiences in America, I shall regard with 
different eyes the much-assailed book by Plor- 



32 An Occultist's Travels. 

ence Marryat, "There is no Death/' Until that 
time, I, too, thought this lady somewhat fan- 
tastic. But Hellenbach is evidently right in 
saying : "The unbelieving world, taught and 
elucidated in its imagination, wants no heaven 
at all; it would feel the full measure of its 
absurdity if the intelligible world would take 
a firm stand and admit the great error of opin- 
ion it committed, when it — and correctly — rec- 
ognized human development as a product of 
adaptability, but cut off this adaptability by 
death, and yet could believe that the product of 
adaptability can be deposited in Zoosperms and 
be inherited above the physiological material 
value. " 

In January, 1904, I lived a short time in the 
Hotel La Pintoresca at Pasadena,* which can 
be reached in three-quarters of an hour from 
Los Angeles by the electric car. It is situated 
directly among the mountains ; but even during 
this month I suffered from the terrible heat ; yet 
the thermometer usually showed from 86 to 90 



*On the occasion of visiting a school, the teacher, 
when I introduced myself as a "German," had the 
Lorelei sung for me by children seven or eight years 
old, among them several negroes, in faultless German, 
with no American accent. 



An Occultist's Travels. 33 

degrees till three in the afternoon, and there 
was no rain. I had hoped gradually to accli- 
matize myself to Southern California, but I 
had now been a year and a half in this climate 
and suffered no less than at first in this half- 
tropical region. It is true, as acquaintances 
consoled me by saying, that one can make snow- 
balls, gather roses, and take a sea-bath on the 
same day; but one cannot be always "in the 
car." Mount Lowe, the refuge of the residents 
of Los Angeles, is reached in about two hours, 
in connection with which I will remark that the 
car system in California is much better devel- 
oped than, for instance, in Berlin, especially as 
concerns comfort and speed. Snow can be 
found on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, whose 
summit is reached by a cog-wheel road. Re- 
turning from there, one reaches in about an 
hour Pasadena, which in January displays 
magnificent roses and where, as in Los Angeles, 
the orange and lemon orchards ripen their fruit 
in January. From Pasadena one can go by 
way of Los Angeles in about two hours to 
Santa Monica or Redondo or Long Beach (all 
three on the Pacific Ocean), where one can 
bathe in the open sea in January or take a 



34 An Occultist's Travels. 

little voyage to Santa Catalina Island, a ro- 
mantic isle in the sea, like Heligoland or 
Capri.* Rowboats, with a glass bottom, permit 
a view of the floor of the sea, which displays 
a fairy-like splendour in its plant formations, 
amid which swim throngs of gold fish and other 
species. Only on the Lake of Garda in 1896, 
and later on the road along the Mediterranean, 
between Nice and Villa Franca, have I seen 
anything like it. I brought cones seventeen 
inches long from the pine trees on the snow- 
clad mountains and adorned my room with 
them. As California borders upon Mexico, I 
did not wish to miss seeing this country, espe- 
cially as the feeling was maturing in my mind 
that I must soon turn northward on account of 
the climate; so, on the 25th of January, 1904, 
I set out on the journey. 

I left Los Angeles on Monday, and did not 
arrive in the city of Mexico until Friday. The 
long ride across Arizona and New Mexico to 
the frontier station of El Paso in Texas, led 



*I remember with great pleasure Capri, where I lived 
at Pagano in 1886. At that time life had not yet made 
me the phenomenal pessimist — in contrast to the tran- 
scendental optimist. My experiences and conflicts with 
the mire of the world did not begin until 1888. 



An Occultist's Travels. 35 

everywhere through prairies. At El Paso there 
is a change of road, and then the journey com 
tinues two more days and nights over similar 
prairies, though in the distance the mountains 
of the Sierra Madre and the Cordilleras of the 
coast are constantly in view. In the city of 
Mexico, however, I stayed at the Hotel Itur- 
bide — one feels richly rewarded for these fa- 
tiguing experiences. A really charming city, 
thoroughly clean, and built with much architec- 
tural magnificence in the new portion. Every- 
thing there is nearly one-half cheaper than in 
the United States; the climate, too, is much 
more agreeable than in Southern California; 
yet it lies at a height of nearly 7500 feet, so 
that it is never too hot and never too cool. Be- 
fore the "Presidium," now occupied by the 
President, which for nearly three years served 
as the residence of poor Archduke Maximilian 
of Austria, who was shot on the 19th of June, 
1867, I remembered the castle of Miramar at 
Trieste, with its marvellouslv beautiful situa- 
tion, which I visited in 1902, on my way to 
Egypt. In this castle, a Mexican deputation 
offered the tempting imperial crown to the un- 
fortunate Habsburg, which solemn event is com- 



36 An Occultist's Travels. 

memorated in a large oil painting hanging in 
Miramar. 

From Central Mexico one travels probably 
hundreds of miles through plantations of 
agaves, from whose leaves, nearly as thick as 
one's fist, the Mexicans prepare their national 
drink "pulque," a syrup-like white mass whose 
taste was not agreeable to me. In order to see 
a genuine tropical landscape, I resolved to go 
to Vera Cruz, on the Gulf of Mexico, along 
which road one can most readily become ac- 
quainted with the tropics. I did not regret it. 
Orizaba, Jalapa, and Puebla were recom- 
mended to me. I had already seen the beauties 
of the tropics in Southern Egypt and Nubia, 
and shall never forget the brilliant starry sky 
arching above the ruins of the Temple of Am- 
nion of the Pharaohs in Karnak, opposite an- 
cient Thebes, or a wonderful tropical night in 
Assouan in the Libyan desert, but there one 
finds no vegetation except palms and cacti. On 
this route, however, I was to see tropical forests 
in their full indescribable majesty. In Orizaba 
I stood marvelling in the midst of the sugar- 
cane, coffee, tobacco, and banana plantations. 
It was the first of February, 1904; the sugar- 



An Occultist's Travels. 3*T 

cane had just been cut, and the coffee trees were 
full of beans. I am not botanist enough to give 
the names of all the plants and trees which this 
tropical climate produces: Mimosas, the log- 
wood tree, figs, bamboos, palms, bignonias, ma- 
hogany,* and hundreds of other species, all 
growing wild together, with a magnificence of 
blossom that mocks description ! Dozens of vul- 
tures attend to the cleanliness by devouring 
every animal that dies there ; I have seen them 
myself eagerly sucking up the warm blood of a 
slaughtered steer. 

In Jalapa, Vera Cruz, on the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, the same picture. The common people in 
Mexico, it is true, are backward in civilization ; 
in the flat country one usually sees nothing but 
clay huts, similar to the dirty clay dwellings of 
the fellaheen on the Nile. 

As my time was limited, I could not look 
into occultism in Mexico, though Max Rahn, 
editor of "Die Uebersinnliche Welt/' Berlin, 
by his valuable compilation of nearly all of the 
occult societies and publications in the whole 

*The fruits of the pomegranate and cherimoya have 
a wonderfully delicious flavour. The bananas here are 
red, while the Jamaica banana, which is most eaten in 
America, is yellow. 



38 An Occultist's Travels. 

world, has materially lightened the traveller's 
task in quickly finding the persons connected 
with such matters, even though many addresses, 
principally in the English and Spanish speak- 
ing countries through which I have travelled, 
were no longer to be found. 

It is interesting that, in America, I met a 
number of trance mediums, who instantly told 
me — and correctly — from what little physical 
illness I was suffering. When I think of the 
year 1898, when a Jewish physician denounced 
me in Berlin because I was said to have made 
somnambulistic diagnoses, which, in the case 
alleged by him, was not true, a feeling of regret 
comes over me at the knowledge of how far be- 
hind other countries, including my native Ger- 
man land, still remain in the so-called province 
of the occult science, or if one will have it so, 
in the perception of odic intermingling and 
sensitiveness of feeling. 

Mme. de Thebes in Paris, whom I visited for 
the first time in 1900, told me at once, after she 
had examined the lines of my hand, that I suf- 
fered from rheumatism, which was true. This 
was a brilliant demonstration, for the science of 
chiromancy or palmistry is unknown in Ger- 



An Occultist's Travels. 39 

many, at least in thfc so-called exact scientific 
circles. 

As early as 1839, Dr. Frappart proposed to 
utilize the medicinal powers of somnambulists, 
in order to test the infinitely small doses of 
medicaments, with the remark that this "in- 
tuitive medicine" would overthrow all the sys- 
terns of physicians.* When will the time at 
last come when the "men of science" w T ill study 
the works of du Prel ? One of his latest books t 
presents a compilation in regard to this, which 
will make his name forever remembered. 

I know a Chinese physician in Los Angeles 
— there is a Chinese and a Mexican quarter, 
where only Chinese and Mexicans live — who 
makes diagnoses solely by the pulse, and ac- 
curately. He lays two fingers on the patient's 
pulse, and instantly names the disease without 
going into a trance. 

*Frappart : Lettres sur le magnetisme et le somnam- 
bulisme (Letters on Magnetism and Somnambulism), 
p. 152. See Willy Reichel in Brockhaus Konversations- 
Lexikon (Brockhaus' Encyclopedia), Psychical Stud- 
ies, 1901, p. 213, and Baron von Reichenbach : Der sen- 
sitive Mensch (The sensitive human being), Stuttgart, 
1854, I, p. 428. 

t Dr. Carl du Prel : Die Magie als Naturwissenschaft 
(Magic as a Natural Science), Jena, 1899, and Die Ent- 
decknng der Seele (The Discovery of the Soul), Leip- 
zig, 1894-95. 



40 An Occultist's Travels. 

Of course there is also plenty of swindling in 
America. But Passavant* is right in saying: 
"These powers would be abused, like all powers 
in the world, the highest, the most horrible. But 
call all history to witness, ask all the genera- 
tions of the earth, whose skeletons are in the soil 
on which we walk: Has ever any great and 
glorious apparition manifested itself to the 
world, even where the hand of the Eternal visi- 
bly touched the earth, which was not laughed at 
by shallowness, deformed by superstition, 
gnawed like a worm by mockery, and darkened, 
abused, poisoned by the gloomy spirit of false- 
hood ? But is it due to the water, that the lily 
draws from its fragrance, and the hemlock 
poison ?" 

At the end of February, 1904, I had occasion 
to visit San Francisco again. A friend, an 
American colonel, obtained passage for me on 
the government boat, which goes around San 
Francisco Bay several times daily to carry pro- 
visions and convey the mail to the different 
fortifications. This bay makes a far more ro- 
mantic impression than New York harbour; it 



*Dr. J. C. Passavant : Investigations of Magnetism 
and Clairvoyance, Frankfort, 1821, p. 20. 



An Occultist's Travels. '41 

is encircled by mountains and peopled by count- 
less sea-lions, which can be seen best from Cliff 
House. 

I then again visited Mr. Miller, to have new 
experiences, which made me earnestly wish that 
Colonel de Rochas, or Professor Charles Richet, 
or Camille Flammarion in Paris, or the Society 
for Psychical Research in London could scien- 
tifically test this medium. Miller was born in 
Nancy (France) on the 8th of September, 
1870, and has been for fourteen years in Amer- 
ica; I regret extremely that Professor Zollner, 
du Prel, and Baron Hellenbach are already 
snatched from this earthly sphere, for in Miller 
these leaders in the occult domain in Germany 
would have found great delight. Miller will 
visit Prance again in 1906, and I heard from 
Professor van cler Naillen, the President of the 
School of Engineering in San Francisco, who is 
a friend of de Rochas, that he would call the 
attention of the latter tried investigator to 
Miller. Any one who is an expert in occultism 
knows that, if one has several seances with the 
same medium, they always improve, if sympa- 
thy and harmony have existed. 

I will now — except in one case, which I must 



42 An Occultist's Travels. 

treat more in detail — briefly state what I ex- 
perienced with Miller. I saw, by an amply suffi- 
cient light, while Miller was standing before the 
curtain, a fully developed spirit come out from 
behind it, go about* nine feet, to a lady sit- 
ting beside me, embrace and kiss her — it was 
his mother — and then watched Mr. Miller who 
— not in a trance — slowly followed him, as he 
took him by the hand and led him back to the 
curtain, where he dematerialized before it. I 
also saw eight times a gentleman well known to 
me in life, ten feet away from the medium, first 
approaching and sinking in front of me as a lit- 
tle floating flame, develop in perhaps a minute 
and a half, till he stood in his full figure di- 
rectly before my eyes. He then held long con- 
versations with me, drew back himself to the 
curtain, where I followed, and dematerialized 
himself before my eyes, still talking until his 
head at last vanished. 

This spirit, in his voice and his whole man- 
ner of speech, was absolutely unmistakable ; but 
as he developed himself in white robes, I asked 
him if he would be able, that is, if he could re- 
member in what dress he was laid in the coffin, 
and to materialize in this for a still more posi- 



An Occultist's Travels. 43 

tive proof, of identity. He promised to do so, 
and came the next day to a seance in a dress- 
coat, exactly as I had seen him in the coffin, hh 
face without any covering. I saw with my o wm 
eyes little revolving flames, white, blue, and a 
wonderful light-blue, from which voices spoke 
to me, giving their full names, and those of 
friends and relatives; some sank and quickly 
developed, but others had not yet attained this 
ability. I saw my nephew Helmuth, who died 
in Berlin, August 31st, 1898, as a child four 
years old, float with his fair hair out of the 
cabinet, calling constantly: "Uncle, do you see 
me ?" I saw him hovering about in the room 
a long time and then disappearing through the 
ceiling.* Who, having had such an experience 
fall to his lot even once, which makes all farther 
proofs superfluous, could still doubt the truth of 
Spiritualism? I saw and heard these things 
several times. 

On another occasion, at a private seance, 

^Concerning a disappearance through the ceiling of a 
room Professor Perty reports with the medium Wil- 
liams in London in his book, Der jelzige Spiritualismus 
und verwandte Erfahrungen (Modern Spiritualism and 
Kindred Experiences), Leipzig, 1877, p. 164, as well as 
Florence Marryat in There is no Death, p. 342, with 
the medium Virginia Roberts. 



44 An Occultist's Travels. 

standing directly behind Miller, who was not 
in a trance, I saw bright flames floating from 
every direction from which voices addressed me 
in the most touching manner. I saw at a public 
seance, for at least twelve minutes, a spirit, 
fully materialized, sit among us and talk with 
us. I saw at least a dozen spirits develop before 
those attending the seance, usually two or three 
yards from the medium who, meanwhile, was 
talking unconcernedly several times ; and heard 
rappings, which sometimes echoed like can- 
nonading; also other tests, for instance: bring- 
ing back a watch that had been lost six years, I 
will mention only incidentally, as the materiali- 
zation was so amazing, that all the rest recedes 
into the background by comparison. 

Miller possesses no less than eight "Controls." 
"Betsy" is the principal one. She has hard 
work, but she is tireless and a dear, kind spirit. 
This spirit was a servant of the medium's 
grandparents; she was a negress, and, as she 
says, has undertaken this hard mission out of 
gratitude for the good treatment which she re- 
ceived from them. Another is an Indian Star 
Eagle — who possesses medical knowledge, and 
who explained to me in detail my illness, whoso 



An Occultist's Travels. 45 

original cause no physician had yet found, 
while, fully materialized, he himself placed the 
remedy for it in my hand. 

I will not enter farther into the conversa- 
tions with these spirits, as they principally con- 
cerned private affairs, and I do not occupy my- 
self with spiritualistic revelations. I am in 
general of the same opinion as du Prel : "There 
is as yet no spiritualism which opens up to us 
the real world beyond the grave, but only one 
which teaches us to know the phenomena occur- 
ring between the two worlds."* 

If any one has an interest in the revelations 
of the world beyond the grave, the works of 
Swedenborg, Cahagnet, Dr. Friese, A. J. Davis, 
Hudson Tuttle, Allan Kardec, Annie Besant, 
Mme. d'Esperance, and others are at his dis- 
posal, t 

I must describe more fully one incident at 
Miller's — I have already alluded to it — because 



*Du Prel : Der Tod, das Jenseits, das Leben im Jen- 
setts (Death, the World Beyond, the Life in the World 
Beyond), Munich, 1899, p. 301. 

tThe Kundgebungen des Geistes Emanuel (Demon- 
strations of the Spirit Emanuel), 1890- 1897, collected 
bv B. Forsboom, a friend of du Prel (published by Karl 
Siegismund in Berlin) are the most sympathetic to me 
of "spiritualist revelations," 






46 An Occultist's Travels. 

I cannot recollect having read anything similar 
in the more recent spiritualist literature; and 
this is a dematerialization of a living human be- 
ing and the finding him again in another story. 
The magnificent pamphlet by Dr. Walter Bor- 
mann, "The Scotchman Home' (Leipzig, O. 
Mutze, 1899) , describes the levitations of 
Home, but not the dissolving of his whole body. 
Du Prel ? * too, has compiled a large number of 
levitations of all periods, but I cannot recall 
having read there of the disappearance of a 
living person, as took place in Miller's case.f 

The incident occurred in the following man- 
ner : Mr. Miller was sitting in the cabiujet, in a 
trance, and Betsy summoned me into the cabinet 
in order to convince myself that Miller was 
sleeping in it. She called me the "German 
gentleman." The seance this time consisted of 
twenty-seven persons. She said to me: "We 
will now dematerialize our medium and remove 



*Du Prel : Die Magie ah Naturwissenschaft (Magic 
as a Natural Science), Jena, 1899, p. 147. 

fSubsequently I found a report of a disappearance of 
a medium by William Eglinton, so the "Miller" case 
does not stand alone. See Animismus und Spiritismus 
(Animism and Spiritualism), by A. Aksakow, 2d edi- 
tion, II, p. 288, and Vesme, Geschichte des Spiritismus 
(History of Spiritualism), Leipsic, O, Mutze, 1898, II, 
p. 127. " 



An Occultist's Travels. 47 

him to the second story, and yon and another 
gentleman and two ladies must get the key to 
the second story and bring the medium down 
again." 

I will mention that the whole house belongs 
to Mr. Miller, and the seances were held on the 
ground floor, while the second story, as Miller 
is not married, is kept securely locked, since 
thieving is not rare in California. Betsy also 
requested us to join hands and sing, in order to 
obtain perfect calmness of soul, and the great- 
est harmony, because her purpose was extremely 
difficult. I again carefully examined every- 
thing, convinced myself that it would have been 
utterly impossible for Miller to get out of the 
cabinet, since twenty-seven persons were sitting 
directly in front of it and there was abundant 
light, while the back of the cabinet faced di- 
rectly upon the street. Even if a window should 
be opened — there was no door — any draught of 
air, and besides, it was stormy, rainy weather, 
would have been instantly noticed by us. After 
about four minutes, Betsy's voice was heard, 
asking that we four persons should now go. I 
had the housekeeper, who was sitting in the 
circle, give me the key, and we went to the sec- 



48 An Occultist's Travels. 

oiid story, where I unlocked the door, and 
really found Mr. Miller, breathing heavily, sit- 
ting in a chair. I took the medium, who was 
still in a trance, by the hand and led him back 
into our circle, where he awoke without any 
recollection of what had happened; only his 
heart gave him pain. 

When the question of the fourth dimension of 
space was brought up by Professor Zollner of 
Leipzig, Lazar von Hellenbach asked his 
medium the question whether a human being 
could disappear by the way of the fourth di- 
mension. The answer was: "A human being 
could under certain circumstances. There is 
too much respect for it, to do it often, but there 
are cases where human beings disappeared and 
became invisible to their persecutors, as Christ 
in the Temple." Thanks to the philosophical 
works of Hellenbach" 55 " and du Prel, the idea of 
personality has obtained an entirely new devel- 
opment, so that the difficulties which the spir- 
itualistic problem presents to us, are now, to a 
large extent, removed. 

We now know that our inner (individual) 

*Hellenbach : Vorurtheile der Menschheit (Preju- 
dices of Mankind), Leipzig, 1884, II, p. 273. 



An Occultist's Travels. 49 

consciousness and our outer (sense) conscious- 
ness are not one and the same thing — experi- 
ments in the provinces of somnambulism and 
hypnotism prove this truth — that our person- 
ality, which is the result of our outer con- 
sciousness, cannot be identified with the Ego 
which belongs to our inner consciousness, or, to 
put it briefly, that what we call our self -con- 
sciousness is not the equivalent of our inner 
consciousness. So we must distinguish between 
the personality and the individuality. The in- 
dividuality endures, the personality vanishes. 
That is why the question of the identity of the 
spirits is the stumbling block of spiritualism, 
and for that very reason cases of this kind, 
which stand the test, are so extremely rare. 
That is also the reason that the communications 
through mediums can give us no definite dis- 
closures concerning the Spirit World and its 
inhabitants ; the transcendental world is just as 
immeasurable an idea to the phenomenal world 
as the conception of the fourth dimension; we 
can have no idea of it. 

But I can now assert, with all positiveness, 
that at Mr. Miller's I saw three spirits un- 
doubtedly in their outer form, without any 



50 An Occultist's Travels. 

muffling, and recognized them by their speech 
to be the departed persons whose names they 
gave. Of course, Miller has- had a great deal 
written about him in the American professional 
press, as well as in the daily papers. I have 
read more or less detailed descriptions of him in 
The Better Way, The Searchlight, Light of 
Truth, Philosophical Journal, Rays of Truth, 
Examiner (a daily paper appearing in San 
Francisco, which gave full description of a 
seance of the Eussian Grand Duke Boris with 
Miller), etc. ; but I wish, as I have already re- 
marked, that this medium might become known 
in scientific circles in Europe, in order surely 
to be one of the best corner-stones for the erec- 
tion of the doctrine of the truth of trans- 
cendental intercourse with our departed friends. 
I have experienced many other things with 
Miller; for instance, once two spirits mater- 
ialized who said that they had been Egyptian 
dancing-girls; they wound up themselves a 
musical clock standing beside me, and danced, 
that is, made the dancing movements, similar 
to those I had seen the dancing dervishes per- 
form in Cairo in January, 1902, after which 
they dematerialized before my eyes. 



An Occultist's Travels. 51 

Another time beings appeared, shining radi- 
antly from within outward — words of descrip- 
tion fail me — they said that they had never 
lived upon this earth, but were "Spirits of the 
Sun/' and allowed me to touch them, in order 
to convince me that, out of love for mankind, 
they had adapted themselves for this moment 
to the earthly sphere. 

Women spirits appeared, with children in 
their arms, such as Professor Perty describes 
in his account of experiences with the Eddy 
medium in Chittenden (Vermont, America). 
Professor Perty has collected a great number of 
similar experiences in this interesting prov- 
ince.* 

*Professor Dr. Perty: Der jetzige Spiritualismus und 
verwandte Erscheinungen (Modern Spiritualism and 
Kindred Experiences), Leipzig and Heidelberg, 1877; 
Die sichtbare und die unsichtbare Welt (The Visible 
and the Invisible World), 1881 ; Blicke in das verbor- 
gene Gebiet des Menschengeistes (Glimpses of the Hid- 
den Domain of the Human Spirit), 1869; Vesme, Ges- 
chichte des Spiritismus (History of Spiritualism), 
Leipsic, O. Mutze, 1808, and Carl Kiesewetter : Ges- 
chichte des neueren Okkultismus (History of Modern 
Occultism), Leipsic, Wilhelm Friedrich, 1891. 



52 An Occultist's Travels, 



III. 



Mr. Miller visited me in April, 1904, in Los 
Angeles, where I was then residing, about five 
hundred miles from San Francisco. On his 
arrival I examined him, as well as his two pieces 
of hand-luggage, and built a cabinet myself in 
my own private dwelling; but again, as at the 
first seance, behind my chair five feet away 
from the medium — the same spirit that I have 
previously fully described, developed himself in 
shining robes. Then a female spirit came out 
of the cabinet, went through the door into the 
entry, about thirty feet away, and blessed the 
house. Other spirits, with whose works I had 
occupied myself years ago, appeared and 
greeted me in the most cordial manner. The 
most striking thing with Miller is that all these 
spirits instantly mentioned their names — 
Christian and surnames — and with an accuracy 
which I never before experienced. 

In a word, these seances in my own residence 



An Occultist's Travels. 53 

presented the same phenomena as those in San 
Francisco. In everything I am writing down 
here I am perfectly aware of the full signifi- 
cance of my words. 

It is very probable that many readers would 
like to learn what interesting things the spirits 
momentarily materialized through the interven- 
tion of so unusually highly-endowed a medium 
have communicated to me concerning the life 
after death. I have heard much, for spirits re- 
ported themselves by their full names, who had 
formerly represented the most diverse ideas in 
their works; but the relative value of these 
statements, in my opinion, is to be accepted very 
critically, since, according to experience, they 
contradict themselves with different mediums. 
Professor Zollner has given this warning in 
vigorous language.* 

In the seances with Miller I heard the spirits 
speak only English, French, and German, but I 
was several times assured that, in a seance of 
seventy-five persons, which was held shortly 
before, twenty-seven languages and dialects 



^Professor Zollner : Die transzendentale Physik 
(Transcendental Physics), III, Leipzig, 1879, Preface, 
p. 36. 



54 An Occultist's Travels. 

were spoken by the spirits, corresponding with 
the number of the various nationalities that, no 
rarity in San Francisco, were present. Profes- 
sor Zollner, on April 28th, 1879, wrote the fol- 
lowing warning to his friend, Dr. Friese, in 
Breslau : 

"Science can do nothing with the purport of 
intellectual revelations, but must continue its 
structure by the guidance of observed facts and 
the conclusions logically and mathematically 
uniting them. If we forsake this path, we shall 
inevitably fall into the theological and philoso- 
phical wrangling of scholars about the sub- 
stance and origin of historically transmitted 
assertions. We should once more experience 
the same dissension between the various adher- 
ents of individual revelations that history has 
handed down to us in blood-stained characters 
in the religious battles of former times." The 
power of suggestion of these mediums is im- 
mensely great ! 

I myself have noticed a case with Miller, 
which, without doubt, rested solely upon telepa- 
thy. Thomson Jay Hudson has written a book,* 

^Thomson Jay Hudson: The Law of Psychical Phe- 
nomena, 



An Occultist's Travels. 55 

which was translated into German by Eduard 
Herman. 

In many things I do not agree with him, but 
I advise every one who desires to avoid the cliffs 
and the undeniable perils of Spiritualism, to 
study industriously this work of a connoisseur 
in the doubtful province. 

Meanwhile, the United States had opened the 
World's Fair in St. Louis, which, on the 1st of 
June, 1904, I set out to visit. St. Louis is 
reached from Los Angeles in four days by the 
Santa Fe railroad, through Arizona, New Mex- 
ico, Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri, as far as 
Kansas almost everywhere through prairies ! I 
have now gradually passed through the endless 
plains of grass, whose view, according to 
Schopenhauer (The Platonic Idea: "The Ob- 
ject of Art") is famed for its impression of 
sublimity, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 
from the Mexican frontier to Canada ; yet upon 
me they have always made a melancholy im- 
pression. 

I can omit describing the Exposition ; all the 
newspapers in the world were full of it; per- 
sonally, I was most pleased with the Japanese, 
and then with the German, exhibit. On the way 



56 An Occultist's Travels. 

through Arizona, I branched off to the Grand 
Caiion. The accessible part of this immense 
gorge has a length of two hundred and seven- 
teen miles, and a vertical depth of about 6000 
feet, and is thirteen miles wide at the point 
from which visitors generally view it. The 
author of "Etidorpha"* ought to have had his 
journey to the Under World commence here. 

I remained at the World's Fair, from the 5th 
to the 12th of June, at the Inside Inn Hotel, 
which was in the exhibition grounds, and then 
took the Burlington route through Nebraska 
and Montana to reach, in two days and a half, 
the Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. This tract 
was made a national park in 1872 ; it is about 
sixty-two miles long, fifty-four miles wide, and 
has an area of thirty-three thousand and twelve 
square miles. The trip through this vast "Para- 
dise" — in the Greek sense of the word — is made 
by stage in five and a half days. I saw there 
the buffalo, the elk, the bear, etc., in full lib- 
erty; but as these animals are not hunted here, 
even the bear approaches within about two hun- 
dred yards of human beings ; at the "Fountain 

*Etidorpha or The End of the World, by John Uri 
Lloyd. 



An Occultist's Travels. 5? 

Hotel/' I saw three bears that had come down 
from the mountains trot along and, after find- 
ing the food which the hotel daily throws out 
for them, quickly disappear in the forests. But 
the principal objects of interest in Yellowstone 
Park are the geysers, periodical hot springs, of 
which the Giant rises two hundred and fifty 
feet. There are about thirty-three of the most 
noteworthy, which spout at intervals of from 
five minutes to twelve days, lasting from one to 
ninety minutes. In a large portion of this park 
one walks upon cold sulphur ; there is a boiling 
and a bubbling everywhere, like a pool in 
Hades, and I could not help being vividly re- 
minded of Dante and his "Divine Comedy." 
On a very small scale I had witnessed some- 
thing similar in 1886 in the Solfatarra at Poz- 
zuoli, near Naples, and on the Lake of Garda 
at Sermione, where the villa of the Eoman poet 
Catullus once stood. (In July, 1896, I lived at 
JMaderno on the Lake of Garda, in which month 
the Italian portion of this lake displays its full 
magnificence. I most admired the caper tree 
and the passion flowers.) The wood near the 
Norris Hotel, where the sulphur has turned the 
trees perfectly white, so that it seems as though 



58 An Occultist's Travels. 

one were in a petrified forest, is also very inter- 
esting. 

To return from Yellowstone Park I took the 
Northern Pacific road by way of Idaho, Wash- 
ington, and Oregon, to California. This jour- 
ney reconciled me again to many things in 
America. The days of travel through those end- 
less prairies of Central America were always 
depressing to my mind, but the trip from Liv- 
ingston to Portland, Ore., and then southward 
to San Francisco, is thoroughly charming. The 
Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Mountains, 
the spurs- of the Sierra Nevada, which one 
crosses, are incomparably more beautiful than 
the mountains through which the Union Pacific 
passes farther south. Everywhere there are 
lakes and rivers and snow-clad peaks — so for 
nearly four days one travels through perfectly 
magnificent scenery. 

On arriving again in San Francisco, it was 
naturally a matter of course that I sought Mr. 
Miller and had about twelve seances with him. 
The phenomena were almost the same, with the 
exception of one case, which aroused my eager 
interest. I might mention in advance, that the 
spirits which, in his circle, are distinguished as 



An Occultist's Travels. 59 

high/' represent the theory of palingenesis, or 
reincarnation , not in the sense of the esoteric 
doctrine of Buddhism, but in the sense of Allan 
Kardec. I will not touch here upon the much- 
disputed question of reincarnation from the 
standpoint of its spiritual value — it certainly 
sounds plausible — but it must not be overlooked 
that Miller is a Frenchman, and that, according 
to experience, mediums are very easily accessi- 
ble to the psychologization of preconceived ideas 
and that occult France probably contains the 
largest number of believers in Kardec's rein- 
carnation theory. 

Privy-Councillor Aksakov, as is well known, 
has stated the following scheme for materializa- 
tion: "Visible and complete materialization of 
a whole human form corresponds with a com- 
plete and maximal dematerialization of the 
medium to the point where he may become in- 
visible/' which phenomenon he describes in de- 
tail in his "Psychical Studies,"* Leipzig, Ger- 
many. ^ 

I have witnessed with Miller a similar, very 

*A phenomenon making an epoch in the province of 
materialization, Psychical Studies, 1894, p. 284, etc.; see 
Animismus una 1 Spiritismus (Animism and Spiritual- 
ism), 2d edition, p. 264-266. 



60 An Occultist's Travels. 

remarkable phenomenon. I asked a spirit, 
whom I have already mentioned, and who re- 
peatedly embraced and kissed me, to try whether 
I could see him at the same time with the 
medium. In a seance of twenty-two persons he 
appeared fully materialized and beside him the 
medium bare from the head to the waist. In 
less than three minutes, however, the medium's 
head became like a child's, then diminished still 
more, and finally became invisible. If Mr. 
Miller should visit France and England, I hope 
that he will find conditions there which will 
enable theoretically and practically trained in- 
vestigators, like de Rochas, Eichet, and others, 
to see similar things under strict test condi- 
tions. 

On the 3d of July I reached Los Angeles 
again, but I did not feel happy there. Without 
refined sooiety, without intellectual pleasures, I 
often fell into dull indifference or a morbid 
state of excitement. I remember once having 
read "Chips of Thought" by Maxim Gorki, 
which apply to me exactly; they run approxi- 
mately as follows: "The more sensitive a man 
is, the less energy there is in him, the more he 
suffers and the harder his life is. Solitude and 
longing are the destiny of such human beings !" 



An Occultist's Travels. 61 

As the heat in Southern California this year 
was unusually great, on the 26th of July I 
again took refuge in the mountains with my 
friend Ralph Follows in the San Gabriel canon, 
this time with my Winchester rifle and 
Xietzsches' "Zarathustra." I admire this artist 
in style, though his view of life, from the ethi- 
cal standpoint, is diametrically opposed to mine. 

Kardec, too, I read here again after an inter- 
val of years, Dr. du Prel is also a representative 
of the reincarnation theory, and Baron Hellen- 
bach at least does not reject it True, it cannot 
be absolutely proved ; but, as already remarked, 
to every consistent logician it sounds very ac- 
ceptable. In reply to a question in regard to 
this asked at Miller's, as to how I mvself stood 
in this respect, I received the answer that I was 
already reincarnated for the fourth time. The 
last time — about three hundred years ago — I 
had been a Bohemian king, who desired as such 
to give his people laws which would lead to 
progress, but he could not accomplish it, and 
therefore died discontented and weary of life; 
I had now reincarnated myself again to serve 
mankind by the dissemination of magnetism 
and occultism. It is true that I was born of a 



/ 



62 An Occultist's Travels. 

family which, on both the paternal and maternal 
side, possessed magnetic and mediumistic pow- 
ers. My grandf ather* was, as previously men- 
tioned, a highly esteemed physician and strong 
magnetizer in his time, and my father's sister 
was a psychographic medium, so that I seem to 
have inherited my gift of sensitiveness. 

It all sounds thoroughly possible, and who- 
ever is familiar with the intellectual essays on 
this subject by Dr. Hiibbe-Schleiden in the 
"Sphinx," Brunswick, Germany, would perhaps 
reject the opinion of A. J. Davis, f who uncere- 

*Dr. Julius Neuberth became in 1847 a member of the 
Kaiser Leopold-Carol Academy of Naturalists in Halle, 
and his Original Beitrage zur Geschichte des Somnam- 
bulismus (Original Contributions to the History of 
Somnambulism), Leipzig, Otto Wigand, 1841, was 
quoted by Du Prel in Die Magie als Naturwissenschaft, 
Jena, Costenoble, 1899, p. 148. He also wrote Die Heil- 
kraft der menschlichen Hand (The Healing Power of 
the Human Hand), Grimma, 1843, and numerous es- 
says in the Dresdner Wochenblatt (Dresden Weekly). 
At that time he had a difficult position, for Magnetism 
was still very little known. Count Szapary was almost 
the only person who supported him. 

tSee A. J. Davis, Spiritual Journeys and Principles 
of Nature. I am thoroughly acquainted with The 
Esoteric Doctrine, by Sinnett; The Sea of Theosophy, 
by W. Q. Judge; Buddistischer Katechismus (Budd- 
hist Catechism), by Subhadra Bickshu, Brunswick, 
1888; Light on the Path, by Mabel Collins, and Bhag- 
avad Gita, Brunswick, 1892, in the edition of Dr. Franz 
Hartmann. 



An Occultist's Travels. 63 

moniously declared the reincarnation to be a 
jest of the "Diakka." But, on the other hand, 
what Aksakov has written concerning the gene- 
sis of Kardec's works, gives food for thought.* 

^Investigations of the Historical Origin of the Rein- 
carnation Dogmas in French Spiritualism, by A. Ak- 
sakov ; Psychical Studies, 1898, p. 258. See also : The 
Origin of Life and Spirit, by A. Voss; Uebersinnliche 
Welt (Transcendental World), p. 343. For the rest, 
the controlling spirits of the Banner of Light (Boston, 
Mass.), have always represented the theory of reincar- 
nation, that is also in America. See Ludwig Deinhard, 
Amerikanischer S piritualismus (American Spiritual- 
ism), Sphinx (Gera, Reuss), 1890, p. 75, in his criti- 
cism of Henry Lacroix, the Paris correspondent of the 
Banner of Light. 



64 



An Occultist's Travels. 



IV. 



In Europe, as well as in America, I have 
known men of high culture and noble character 
and noticed that they often obtained nothing at 
seances, while I supposed that high-mindedness 
and magnanimity ought to induce good sittings. 
It was positively painful to me to see such per- 
sons, after I had made everv effort to convince 
them of the transcendental life, leave seances 
with mediums who were usually excellent, un- 
satisfied. Hellenbach gives a very acceptable 
explanation: "The fixed destiny of a human 
being may also be an obstacle. Man comes into 
the world for some purpose of development; if 
this goal is inconsistent with his taking up this 
branch of knowledge, there will be mutual 
repugnance between him and it. As instinct 
guides animals in the interest of food, so an 
inward impulse guides man to the search for 
the necessary factors in his ethical development. 
It is perfectly conceivable that the unseen intel- 



An Occultist's Travels. 65 

ligences feel a certain aversion to interfering 
with certain personalities."* 

I hope later to be able to put in book form 
my experiences in the transcendental domain 
with many mediums. I have so many to note 
which utterly preclude the idea of a masked 
telepathy (and therein lies the "Punctum 
saliens") . 

True, the Berlin "Philosopher of the Un- 
known/' Eduard von Hartmann, once said to 
my brother that nothing in the world would be 
more horrible to him than the thought of a con- 
tinued life, and the Jena zoologist, Professor 
Dr. Ernst Haeckel, calls the common concep- 
tion of eternal life no glorious consolation, but 
a terrible menacing outlook. (Die Weltratsel, 
Bonn, 1899, p. 240.) 

But if there is a personally conscious con- 
tinued life and for my own part I cannot doubt 
it, death will lose its terrors, since it will then 
be only a relative birth, just as the earthly birth 
is a relative death; for while in the latter the 
transcendental subject recedes into obscurity to 

*Hellenbach : Geburt und Tod (Birth and Death), 
Vienna, 1885, p. 237, 2d edition, Leipzig, O. Mutze, 1907, 



66 An Occultist's Travels. 

our cerebral consciousness, in death it will again 
become free. 

In a precisely similar sense, Kant has already 
said in his Lecture on Metaphysics: "Death is 
not the absolute ending of life, but a liberation 
from the obstacles to a complete life." 

Wonderfully beautiful, therefore, are the 
words of the motto which I found in Professor 
Zollner's works: 

"The highest thing which thy spirit seeks to 
draw from the eternal source of all existence is 
but an image."* 

It has often happened to me, as it probably 
has to every trained experimenter in this prov- 
ince, with mediums through whom I spoke to 
spiritual beings and also saw them fully ma- 
terialized and believed I recognized them as the 
persons they announced themselves to be, that 
afterwards they said something which again 
awakened doubts of their identity in my mind. 

Hermann Handrich in Brooklyn, who has 
had especially numerous experiences in this 

^Professor Zollner: Wissenschaftliche Abhandlun- 
gen (Scientific Essays), II, Part I, p. 435; Kepler und 
die unsichtbare Welt (Kepler and the Invisible 
World), Leipzig, 1878. 



An Occultist's Travels. 6? 

province, describes similar things.* An Ameri- 
can physician, an Agnostic, who, as I believed, 
had seen in my house unobjectionable materiali- 
zations, told me that these phenomena were con- 
tradictory to the known laws of Nature, and 
did not even interest him ! Yet, as the discov- 
erer of thallium, Professor Sir W. Crookes, 
Fellow of the Koyal Society in London, t says : 
"It is evident that the facts are of the most 
amazing character and seem wholly irreconcila- 
ble with all the theories of modern science. 
After I have convinced myself of the truth, it 
would be a moral cowardice to withhold my tes- 
timony. " I do not understand how a man can 
be so presumptuous as to believe that he knows 
all the laws of Nature. 

It is certainly easy to understand that a 
scientist, who has created a solid base for him- 
self, on which he has erected his knowledge, 
and who then suddenly sees that a new discov- 
ery is threatening to undermine that founda- 
tion, does not find this exactly agreeable, for 

^Hermann Handrich : Erfahrungs-Reilexionem (Re- 
flections on Experiences), Psychical Studies, 1901, p. 

tW. Crookes: Notes of an Investigation into Spir- 
itual Phenomena, Psychical Studies, 



68 An Occultist's Travels. 

which reason so many representatives of the 
science of the schools play an ostrich policy; 
even Professor Virchow, Ueber Wunder 
("About Miracles"), p. 23, says: "We do not 
rejoice to see a new phenomenon; on the con- 
trary, it is often painful." Cremonini da 
Cento, Libri, Clavius, Magini, Horky, genuine 
"men of science," refused to look through the 
telescope, because they thought they must, on 
theoretical grounds, deny the existence of Jupi- 
ter's four moons. 

As has been previously mentioned, I had pub- 
lished in the number of the "Revue Spirite" 
(Paris), appearing August, 1904, certain things 

about the medium Miller. In January, 1905, I 
heard from San Francisco that a letter had come 
from Valence-sur-Rhone to Mr. Miller, from a 
gentleman, J. Debrus, requesting him to give 
twelve seances for de Rochas, himself, and sev- 
eral friends, because I had remarked that Miller 
would visit Prance again in 1905. My wish 
was fulfilled in so far as Colonel Count de 
Rochas desired to see Mr. Miller. So, full of 
good cheer, I went to San Francisco to try what 
was to be done, and with the intention of eventu- 
ally accompanying Mr. Miller to Paris. But I 



An Occultist's Travels. 69 

did not find Mr. Miller in the best state of 
mind, as certain recent psychical excitements 
had made him somewhat nervous. His con- 
trols told me that he could not go to Paris under 
four or five months, and on account of the sud- 
den change of atmosphere, and other conditions 
in France, I must not expect such wonderful 
seances as in California; but perhaps M. de 
Eochas might be persuaded to come here. 

To accomplish this, I was obliged to make 
other arrangements. I put myself into com- 
munication with Professor van der ]N"aillen, a 
friend of de Eochas, who met me in the most 
cordial manner. A seance arranged on the 
same evening, where van der Naillen saw the 
medium Miller at the same time with two fully 
materialized phantoms, was permitted to touch 
them, and other things induced him to give me 
his support in every way, in order to persuade 
de Eochas, in the interest of occultism and hu- 
manity, to accept my invitation. In order to 
lead the latter investigator to do this, that is, 
to be able to send him a report which might in- 
duce him to undertake this long journey, we 
were obliged to forward to him a report of a test 
seance under absolutely conclusive and unobjec- 



70 An Occultist's Travels. 

tionable conditions, with signatures from per- 
sons of scientific reputation. 

After Mr. Miller had given his consent with 
the words: "Do with me as you please/' Pro- 
fessor van der ISTaillen called in as a third, Dr. 
Renz, a universally esteemed German physician, 
and we agreed what tests we must require. I 
first bought a new black shirt, black under vest 
and trousers, then ordered a new suit for Miller, 
and had these articles sent directly to the Palace 
Hotel, where I was living, so that Miller did 
not see them before the seance. I then hired at 
the Palace Hotel — it is the most aristocratic one 
in San Francisco — a second room, whose selec- 
tion I left to Professor van der Naillen, and had 
the cabinet constructed of black material by an 
upholsterer. On the 2nd of February this test 
seance took place. Besides Dr. Renz and his 
wife, Dr. Burgess, Professor Braunwalder, 
Professor of Electricity at the School of Engi- 
neering in San Francisco, Mr. Charles Daw- 
barn, the Calif ornian philosopher, the Turkish 
consul, and other prominent persons who had 
accepted our invitation were present. 

Mr. Miller appeared in the hotel at half past 
eight o'clock, received by van der Kaillen, Dr. 







An Occultist's Travels. 71 

Renz, and myself. We took him to my room, 
where before our eyes, he undressed entirely 
and put on the articles of clothing already men- 
tioned. Then we went into the seance room, 
where Professor van der Naillen and Dr. Renz 
bound the medium with strong ropes, previously 
purchased, by his arms, hands, chest, neck, and 
feet, three or four times to a chair, and sewed 
the ends fast to the carpeted floor. The room 
was about forty feet above the street. During 
the whole seance Miller was not in a trance and 
the cabinet was almost always open. In spite of 
these difficult conditions, nine phantoms gradu- 
ally materialized sometimes ten or twelve feet 
from the medium. Betsy, the principal control 
spirit, went away so far that Mr. Miller called : 
"Betsy, come back, I am suffering terribly." 

I received later from Professor van der Nail- 
len a very long and full report in the French 
language, which, with a letter of introduction 
from myself to de Rochas, I sent to Paris to be 
forwarded. There was not one in this seance 
of sixteen persons, among whom were several 
avowed skeptics, who did not become convinced 
of the genuineness of the phenomena by this sit- 
ting under such conditions. 



72 An Occultist's Travels. 

At a seance, held three days later, at Mr. Mil- 
ler's house, something occurred so interesting 
that I would not like to pass it over. The sit- 
ting took place at noon. Before it began, and 
while Mr. Miller was standing in front of the 
cabinet, I heard Betsy's voice whisper: "Go 
out into the sun with the professor a moment." 
I took Mr. Miller by the arm and went with 
him into the street, which was reached directly 
from the room by merely opening a door, after 
which we immediately returned. At the mo- 
ment we entered the dark room, I and all pres- 
ent saw Mr. Miller completely strewn with a 
shining, white, glittering mass like snow, that 
entirely covered his dark cheviot suit. I have 
witnessed this singular occurrence several 
times; even when he had not previously been 
in the sun, even for a moment, his clothing, as 
soon as the room was darkened, gradually ap- 
peared covered with snow. This is evidently the 
white element of magnetism which the phan- 
toms use in their development, as distinguished 
from the blue, which is effective in healing oper- 
ations. 

It is more difficult for phantoms to appear in 
the garments which they wore in life, because 



An Occultist's Travels. 73 

they must take these materials from those pres- 
ent, while — so they told me — they could find 
the "white magnetism" in the atmosphere. In 
the seances at Miller's I almost always felt, just 
before the appearance of the phantoms, the well- 
known almost icy breath of air, which has been 
so often described in test sittings. 

On April 12th, 1905, I received Colonel de 
Rochas' answer. Since it might be of consider- 
able interest, I will give it in his wording : 

Grenoble, March 27th, 1905. 
Monsieur le Professeur : 

Please pardon my long delay in answering 
your letter of February 11th, 1905 ; but it did 
not reach me until the 6th of March, and I was 
then in my bed from the effects of a violent at- 
tack of grippe, from which I am only gradually 
beginning to recover. 

In the present condition of my health, it is 
impossible for me to foresee when I shall be 
able to expose myself to the fatigue of so long a 
journey, even made under the arrangements you 
so kindly offer me. 

I am, however, strongly tempted; for, like 
you, I am devoting all the energy I possess in 



74 An Occultist's Travels. 

trying to raise the veil behind which is hidden 
our destiny after death. 

I am sending yon by the same mail a lecture 
which I gave recently at the Academie Del- 
phinale, which is composed of the distinguished 
men of my province, in which psychical science 
is almost unknown. Next Friday I shall give 
another upon your experiences with Miller, and 
I think I shall have to struggle vigorously 
against the scepticism of my hearers. 

It is because I am well acquainted with the 
character of our French official scientists, 
among whom I have spent the greater portion of 
my life, that I fear I shall not be able to gain 
all the results you hope from my journey to 
California. I should have vainly accumulated 
proofs of the authenticity of the phenomena 
which I should have witnessed; people will 
always be inclined to tell me that it is impossi- 
ble, and that I have allowed myself to be de- 
ceived. 

You see what happened to Crookes and Dr. 
Gibier ; the latter obtained at General Noel's in 
Algiers very remarkable materializations, but 
the majority of those who consent to read the 
descriptions of them, shrug their shoulders be- 



An Occultist's Travels. 75 

cause the committee before which they were 
shown is composed of persons who are unknown 
and presided over by a woman. 

In my opinion, if we wish to succeed — not in 
imposing the spirit theory at once, but in show- 
ing the materialists that facts contradict their 
teachings — we must act as I did with Eusapia : 

Assemble ten persons who have a well-estab- 
lished scientific reputation; 

Request them to settle with me for three or 
four weeks in any city in France where they 
could devote themselves exclusively to the study 
of Miller ; 

Eequire of them a collective official report of 
the seances, Avith their signatures. 

I am almost sure of the adherence of Profes- 
sors Richet, Flammarion, Porro (Professor of 
Astronomy in the University of Genoa), of Dr. 
le Bon (the discoverer of the black light), of 
Professor Sabathier (dean of the faculty of sci- 
ences and author of famous researches in elec- 
tricity), of Comte de Gramont and Baron de 
Watteville, both doctors of science, of Maxwell 
(Attorney-General in Bordeaux), of Colonel 
Thomassin, grand cross of the legion of honor, 
of Delanne, etc. 



/ 

/ 



76 An Occultist's Travels. 

A document signed by these gentlemen would 
have, not a tenfold, but a hundredfold greater 
value than a similar one signed by myself 
alone. As for the very just objection, on the 
point of the subject's loss of force in a new en- 
vironment, it may be remedied by sending Mil- 
ler to me for a fortnight before the commence- 
ment of the seances, that he may live with me, 
and become accustomed to feel confidence in my 
protection. As to the place where the seances 
should be held, I will propose several from 
which to choose, in order to satisfy in the best 
manner possible the convenience of the mem- 
bers of the committee : 

Montpelier, a large and beautiful city, where 
our senior in age, M. Sabathier, resides. 

Bordeaux, where M. Maxwell would facili- 
tate matters for us. 

Grenoble, whose environs offer interesting ex- 
cursions in the intervals of the seances. 

Le Vesinet, close by Paris, where one of my 
friends would offer us the hospitality of his 
villa for the seances, and where I should live 
with Miller. To sum up, Monsieur le Prof esseur, 
I cannot at this moment accept your generous 
propositions, but I place myself at your entire 



An Occultist's Travels. 77 

disposal to organize in France, at whatever time 
may best suit your convenience, the experiences 
with Miller under the conditions which I con- 
sider the most favourable to act upon the opin- 
ion of my fellow-countrymen. 

Please accept, Monsieur le Professeur, the as- 
surance of my highest esteem. 

A. DE EOCHAS. 

Although these kind words from Count de 
Eochas d'Aiglun, promising so much for the 
future, afforded me the greatest pleasure, I nev- 
ertheless regret, on account of the cause, that he 
could not accept my invitation to come here. I 
hoped that, if a de Eochas could have publicly 
answered for the extraordinary phenomena 
which I had observed with Miller, occultism 
everywhere would have materially benefited. 



78 An Occultist's Travels. 



IV. 



As has already been mentioned, the Pacific 
ocean is about three-quarters of an hour's ride 
from Los Angeles. From Port Los Angeles to 
San Pedro — the two extreme northern and 
southern points — are various watering-places. 
Santa Monica, Kedondo, Long Beach, Playa del 
Rey, Ocean Park, all more or less primitive ; if 
one finds fault, the American answers : "What 
do you expect ? California is a new country," 
in which he is certainly correct. The best place 
is Ocean Park, of course neither an Ostend nor 
a Nice! Yesterday, April 24, I went by elec- 
tric car through fields of grain ready for har- 
vesting, past Hollywood, a French colony, and 
along the spurs of the Sierra Madre of Southern 
California to Ocean Park to enjoy the sea air 
and the magnificent flowers, which extend di- 
rectly to the ocean. Here I fed the pelicans, 
which, with the sea-gulls, people the ocean and 
reminded me of Egypt. A sign on a cottage 



An Occultist's Travels. 79 

by the shore attracted me: "Madge," the 
Romany Gypsy Queen, palmist and clairvoyant 
and crystal-gazer. The latter particularly inter- 
ested me. Palmists and clairvoyants, of whom 
in this country there are several in every city, I 
had visited by dozens, and found three-quarters 
of them ignorant people, who had drawn their 
wisdom from worthless books; but every visit 
costs a dollar, and they often earn an immense 
amount of money, for the otherwise "smart" 
American is superstitious. Extremes meet. 

Privy Councillor Goldberger is perfectly 
right when he characterized America as "The 
Land of Unlimited Possibilities." Every 
medium here, however, must pay a "license" of 
thirty dollars monthly. I do not know how it is 
in the other states of America, but only under 
these conditions can mediums pursue their busi- 
ness — for that it is here — in California. In 
Germany, they always stand with one foot in 
jail. 

In France, in 1895, the "Committee for the 
Defence of the Professional and Scientific In- 
terests of Spiritualism" addressed a full me- 
morial to the Chamber of Deputies, praying for 
the abrogation of paragraph 7 of article 479 of 



80 An Occultist's Travels. 

the "Code penal" (Penal Code) of February 20, 
1810, which prohibits predicting the future and 
similar things, and for the introduction of a 
license for the official sanction of this honour- 
able profession. What resulted from it, I do 
not know. 

A crystal-gazer was something new to me ; I 
knew of the existence of such people from occult 
literature,* but up to this time I had had no 
personal experiences in this province. Mrs. M. 
Ingalls — this is her real name — placed a flat 
crystal cube with octagonal cutting, "a Chinese" 
one, she said, upon the palm of my left hand, 
which it nearly covered, and then told me actu- 
ally almost my entire life. I was not a little 
surprised. She saw, so she explained this gaz- 
ing, symbolically in this cube pictures come and 
go, whose interpretation was the outcome of her 
experience. The first thing she saw was medi- 
cal instruments and her first statement was that 
I must be a physician. True, I was not in the 
ordinary sense, but for nearly twelve years I 
made cures with excellent success. She then, 



*Dr. du Prel's brilliant pen has described this phase 
of occultism in an extremely interesting way in his ro- 
mance, Das Kreuz am Ferner, Stuttgart, Cotta, 1891, 3d 
edition, 1905. 



An Occultist's Travels. 81 

with wonderful accuracy, told me my thoughts, 
my character, my disappointments, and my 
struggles;* all this in a little cottage, directly 
on the shore of the great ocean, whose waves 
almost washed the walls of the little wooden 
house. Somnambulists and crystal-gazers seem 
to be able to state past and coming events most 
accurately; materialized phantoms can do this 
less positively, since they are obliged to take too 
much from the medium himself, hence abso- 
lutely genuine communications can scarcely be 
expected from them. 

Here I am now sitting in the arbour in my 
garden while describing my yesterday's experi- 
ences. For nearly three years I have seen 
neither snow nor ice except on the mountain 
peaks of the Sierra Nevada, which are dis- 
tinctly in view from this spot, for this is the 
region of perpetual sunshine and summer ; over- 
coats are almost unknown, and my furs lie 
buried in naphthaline to protect them against 

*To suffer oneself, in order to present proofs, will 
ever remain the most beautiful and fruitful anthro- 
pomorphism. It makes us ethical and gives us strength. 
Ernst von Feuchtersleben : Zur Diatetik der Seele 
(Dietetics of the Soul). I have often heard similar 
statements from spiritual beings, who alleged that they 
were my guides. 



82 An Occultist's Travels. 

moths, packed in strong chests. The ice-sports 
of Berlin's "Rousseau Island" are totally un- 
known here. Eleven palm-trees of different 
kinds stand in my garden, among orange, lemon, 
peach, banana, and fig trees, which latter pro- 
duce black figs almost as large as my hand. The 
lemon trees are already bearing new blossoms, 
although the old fruit is not yet fully ripe. The 
magnificent bougainvillea, with its thousands of 
lilac blossoms and the yellow bigonia are twin- 
ing up to the roof of my house, and in the so- 
called winter season. The Deutsche Zeitung 
of April 7, received to-day — the mail is from 
eighteen to twenty-two days in reaching here — 
reports zero weather and snow in Berlin. While 
reading this, I do not feel much longing for 
the low-lying plains of North Germany. 

In my opinion the United States has a toler- 
ably large dark side in their temperance move- 
ment. I am no drinker, though I do not at all 
despise a glass of wine, but what the temper- 
ance people have accomplished here is almost in- 
comprehensible to German ideas. In the states 
of Maine, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, the 
sale of alcohol is prohibited. Now in Los 
Angeles beer can be had only when a whole meal 



An Occultist's Travels. 83 

is ordered. And what beer! Germans would 
refuse it. In social gatherings one almost al- 
ways receives only ice-water at lunch or dinner. 
In the Luxor Hotel, at Luxor, in Egypt, I wit- 
nessed for the first time this sight, which is 
positively comical to Germans. 

At dinner there a party of Americans sat at 
a long table at the right, and at the left a party 
of Germans. Before each plate of the Germans 
stood a bottle of wine, before each one of the 
Americans a glass of ice-water. In spite of this, 
the American drinks, when he does drink, more 
than the German. Yet one constantly reads of 
suicides as the result of the effects of alcohol- 
ism. Like the beverages, all eatables are three 
or four times as dear as in Germany, and who- 
ever perhaps is accustomed to Dressel and Hil- 
ler in Berlin, the "Maison Doree" in Paris, the 
Savoy Hotel in London, must greatly reduce his 
demands here. Except turkey with cranberry 
sauce — the American national dish — and mut- 
ton chops a gastronomist will not find much to 
enjoy, unless he is satisfied with fruit, which in 
California certainly leaves nothing to be de- 
sired. 

The Indian "Vedanta Society" has estab- 



84 An Occultist's Travels. 

lished a mission here, as well as in San Fran- 
cisco, a mission which has a very agreeable rep- 
resentative and teacher in Mr. Swami Sach- 
chidananda. I am not competent to give an 
opinion of the esoteric doctrine of Buddhism 
and the Vedanta system. Sinnett* did not in- 
terest me, which is of course no argument 
against the eventual truth of the Indian theoso- 
phy. The devout Indian does not fear death, 
but an unfavourable reincarnation. The world 
offers him nothing which would be to him worth 
gaining, worth enjoying, or worth knowing, ex- 
cept Brahma, t 

This is not the place to discuss the value of 
this doctrine, and I am besides too much of a 
layman to be able to form a trustworthy opin- 
ion, but I received the impression: all this can 
be, but perhaps it cannot be. 

Evidently the matter in question here deals 
with intuitive perceptions, that is purely the- 
oretical conclusion, which can offer no assur- 
ance. The modern age of physical science 
wishes to be convinced by experiments, and 

*A. P. Sinnett: Esoteric Buddhism. 
fSee also Three Lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy, 
by Max Miiller, London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1894. 



An Occultist's Travels. 85 

therefore, though theosophy may look down 
scornfully upon Spiritualistic essays, I am 
firmly convinced that it alone will gradually 
lead science, by experimental paths, to the per- 
ception that there is a spirit which survives the 
earthly husk. The cosmogony of an A. J. 
Davis,* and Hudson Tuttlef is far more sym- 
pathetic to me than the theory of evolution, 
which Sinnett publishes as revelations of In- 
dian theosophy, though, for the rest, a chapter 
from the Gospels, whose meaning becomes 
clearer through the experiences of modern oc- 
cultism than orthodoxy understands how to 
make it, personally affords me far more pleasure 
than the rationalism of a Davis, whose Philos- 
ophy of DeathX is considered the best thing 
which the revelations of Spiritualism has ever 
published. 

So far as I have understood the previously 
mentioned Indian, he preaches a sort of pan- 
theism in the meaning of Spinoza, combined 
with mystic ideas, such as we find in Xeno- 

*A. J. Davis : The Principles of Nature. 

tHudson Tuttle : History and Laws of the Events of 
Creation; also Philosophy of the Spirit and the Spirit 
World. 

J A. J. Davis : The Physician, 



86 An Occultist's Travels. 

phanes, Plato, Eckart, Theophrastus Paracel- 
sus, Giordano Bruno, Bohme, and others. 

But at any rate the assertion, which the noble 
Annie Besant also upholds, that suicides and 
persons who are suddenly deprived of life by 
accident would be worse off in the World Be- 
yond,* if they did not have a pure and good life 
behind them, is extremely open to dispute. My 
own practical experience, and those of others, 
for instance with astrology, which I studied 
through its best representatives, as George 
Wilde and Alan Leo in England, and especially 
Albert Kniepf in Hamburg, point much more 
to an absolute destination of human destiny. 
That chiromancy and somnambulism often ac- 
curately predict for us future events, I consider 
as established facts. I remember Mme. de 
Thebes t in Paris, the Berlin prophetess de Fer- 
ritin, the testimonials for the predictions of 
Cazotte by Laharpe, t and hundreds of other ex- 
amples to be found in spiritualistic literature. 

* Annie Besant: Ueber Mediumismus (Concerning 
Mediums), Sphinx, 1894, p. 380. 

t Psychical Studies, 1896, p. 467; 1897, pp. 198, 647, 
etc. 

tPsychical Studies, 1808, p. 455, by Dr. Walter Bor- 
mann. See Bulwer's Zanoni, Leipsic, 1842, p. 72. 



An Occultist's Travels. 87 

According to these, there are destinies which 
cannot be changed ; so why should a person who 
was deprived of life by a so-called accident, 
which he could not foresee, be obliged to atone 
so heavily for it ? The present editor of Psychi- 
cal Studies, Professor Maier, as well as Privy 
Councillor Seiling, have at times expressed 
themselves on the justification of suicide, under 
certain conditions,"* in a sense to which the ma- 
jority of readers probably would find little to 
object. If my predestination will permit, I 
shall, however, soon visit India, in order, if pos- 
sible, to study the "esoteric doctrine" at the 
source. 

With the very influential position of woman 
in America, where she stands infinitely higher 
than in Europe, the Indian theosophy — the 
Vedanta system is certainly one of the principal 
ones — ought certainly to have little success, 
when the American woman hears the opinion of 
Buddha concerning the female sex. It is simi- 
lar to Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's! Dr. 
Max Freiherr von Wimpffenf writes the fol- 

*See Psychical Studies, 1900, p. 489, and 1901, p. 165. 

"\Kritische Worte iiber den Buddhismus (Critical 
Words on Buddhism), Vienna, Carl Konegen, 1891. 
See Hermann Oldenberg: Buddah, sein leben, sein 



88 An Occultist's Travels. 

lowing: "The Enlightened One has a strange 
opinion of the weaker sex. Every woman will 
commit a sin, if she has the opportunity or finds 
a suitable place or a convenient tempter, if 
necessary with a cripple, if no one better is at 
hand. Unfathomably concealed, like the path- 
way of the fish in the water, is the nature of 
woman, the shrewd robber, in whom truth is 
hard to find, to whom falsehood is like truth and 
truth like falsehood/' etc. 

Occult monism, as principally represented by 
Hellenbach and du Prel, satisfies the needs of 
the human mind and soul in a totally different 
way from the Indian theosophy; this was al- 
ways my impression, which my experiences, 
though insignificant, confirmed. 

The boundary which separates the two worlds 
(the spiritual and the material) may gradually 
fall, like many other barriers, and we shall at- 
tain a higher comprehension of the unity of 
Nature. The number of the possible things in 
the universe is as great as its extent. What we 

Lehre, seine Gemeinde (Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine, 
his Community), Berlin, 1881, and Heinrich Kern: Der 
Buddhismus und seine Geschichte in Indien (Budd- 
hism and its History in India), translated by Hermann 
Jacobi, Leipzig, 1882. 



An Occultist's Travels. 89 

know is nothing in comparison with that which 
still remains for us to know. If ive were willing 
to satisfy ourselves with the half-possession, 
tuhich we have hitherto attained, we should he 
traitors to the holiest rights of science! 

Since writing the above, I have come across 
the following article in the Progressive Thinker 
(Chicago, Sept. 28, 1907), in which the doc- 
trine of reincarnation is clearly and forcibly 
stated : 

"Having been a careful reader of The Pro- 
gressive Thinker for more than three years past, 
I have noted with pleasure its numerous contri- 
buted brilliant articles from the great thinkers 
of the day. 

"But I have also wondered, not a little at 
some of the curious conceptions regarding rein- 
carnation, which are therein occasionally ex- 
pressed by the army of inquirers, scoffers, or 
skeptics, who in many instances have con- 
fessedly investigated little, and flung their spec- 
ulations broadcast from quite insufficiently 
gathered knowledge concerning these great 
teachings. It is true that those who have not 
awakened to the truth of rebirth cannot have it 
forced upon them by argument, while those to 



90 An Occultist's Travels. 

whom it appeals do not need the argument. 
Yet there are many by whom it is vaguely felt 
to be true teaching, who yet fail to grasp its 
significance, being, indeed, repelled by its seem- 
ing incongruities. To such in the fullness of 
time come illumination, not argument. The 
teaching is often revealed through unexpected 
sources and comes in humble guise. 

"For the present writer the mystery called 
reincarnation came as a revelation, certain facts 
being explainable on no other hypothesis. 

"The doctrine of compulsory rebirth; that 
man is bound to the wheel of repeated incarna- 
tions, and into lower forms is justly repugnant 
to the mind which holds sacred the eternal 
justice of things. Such is not the teaching. 

"Man is reborn strictly with his own consent 
and desire, and continuance of consciousness — 
the consciousness depending upon the degree of 
spiritual attainment acquired hy the soul in its 
development up through numerous existences. 

"When a soul has accumulated to itself the 
varied experiences of an earth life, it passes on 
into the plane prepared by its own measure of 
progress, there to remain not "through cen- 
turies of oblivion," but in conscious enjoyment 



An Occultist's Travels. 91 

and assimilation of the same experiences gath- 
ered during its late incarnation. Sooner or 
later, however, according to the degree of devel- 
opment, the soul, resting in exalted happiness, 
having assimilated all its earth experience, and 
in obedience to some latent, unfulfilled desire, 
seeks earthly experience again. 

"The desire is prophecy of its own fulfillment 
— desire and will are back of the evolutionary 
urge from the beginning of unfoldment. 

"But the developed soul gains this at last, 
through repeated incarnations; he has awak- 
ened to a knowledge, and henceforth waits on 
the higher planes, until such time as the earth 
and race progress have swung round to a point 
w T here he can reincarnate with advantage to his 
desire fulfillment. 

It sometimes happens that the desire of the 
incarnating soul is opposed by the superior wis- 
dom of the Spirit, knowing always what is best, 
and the result is an earth life — like many 
which we know, of noble, struggling souls — 
torn by conflict and contradiction. Yet still is 
'all well' for its unfailing guide, the true Ego, 
will inevitably lead toward the absolute in ulti- 
mate perfection. 



92 An Occultist's Travels. 

"In the case of the undeveloped soul, they, 
having little spirituality, reincarnate more fre- 
quently, retaining no memories whatever of any 
previous existence, because these must be in- 
tuitive, and being brought back to earth by 
force of attraction and blind desire. 

"But each time they gain some slight ad- 
vance. Never a retrogression is made. The 
earth is a school and its vacations are meant to 
be spent in happy recreations. One may spend 
hundreds of years in the same grade, but eventu- 
ally it is mastered, and they pass into the next 
highest. Should a scholar fail in only one 
study, he is sent back to be made perfect in that 
one. The other studies of his class, having been 
learned, are his own acquired property, and can 7 
not be taken from him. Thus does the soul 
gain, if it be but a few strands which are woven 
into the pattern all must shape for eternity. 

"It is strictly upon the plane of its own 
making that the higher spirit enjoys larger 
periods of repose and beatitude, while the lower 
spirit comes more quickly back to earth life 
from which he is indeed but severed by the cast- 
ing off of the fleshly garment. The fact of the 



An Occultist's Travels. 93 

lower entities more quickly reincarnating, while 
the higher are in a state of conscious waiting 
for more suitable earth conditions, furnishes a 
key to the mystery of the rise and fall of na- 
tions, the ebb and flow of great dynasties, and 
the thinking mind gains historical events which 
have been chronicled in the world's records since 
time began for us. 

"The separation of loved ones by reincarna- 
tion, so often loudly lamented, is no more 
brought about than is the case in any other tem- 
porary remorse on the earth-plane. The law of 
attraction holds good in all cases, and those who 
have been brought together into close relations 
by a present incarnation, had previously estab- 
lished conditions operating under its law in past 
lives. It sometimes happens, however, that a 
soul on the higher planes may wait centuries, 
while the soul of some loved one, less developed, 
must return for other experiences and lessons 
and also in obedience to latent desire, while the 
higher soul is consciously watching and waiting 
for the one dear to it though less advanced in 
spiritual progress. Does this seem hard and 
long? Then please remember that in the vast 
scheme of eternity a thousand years are but a 



94 An Occultist's Travels. 

day, and a day a thousand years ; and, look you, 
what happens ! 

"When, according to the inevitable working 
of the law of attraction, these two souls meet 
again, they take up their lives together and 
henceforward are never more separated. 

"They have reached the planes of true wis- 
dom and unfolclment and are 'saved' from fur- 
ther re-birth on the earth-plane. Hereafter it 
is on the spiritual zones that they continually 
progress, or else voluntarily return, as did the 
great teachers, to help on in the development of 
the whole race. 

"Thus, when the soul through right living, 
which is loving, has reached these heights, there 
is for it then no more re-births in blind obedi- 
ence to latent desire. It has awakened to the 
light of truth, and henceforward comes under- 
standingly, if at all. 

"In the minds of many are clear revelations 
of former lives. Friendships discovered, loves 
reunited after centuries of Karmic severance; 
destinies worked out to complete fulfillment 
through ages of preparation — thus does the soul 
come into its inheritance, and is illumined for 
eternity. 



An Occultist's Travels. 95 

"These beliefs have existed in the minds of 
millions since the world began. We cannot 
think of anything which can transcend the uni- 
verse of thought, hence it must be possible, and 
if possible, one can see how, to those millions of 
people, it has become demonstrable truth. And, 
after all, it is a beautiful and consoling thing, 
once faced, and its seeming incongruities as- 
similated; this doctrine of reincarnation; spir- 
itual evolution, and a growth into eternity from 
germ to God ! 

"Again, there have been those who speak of 
the soul as 'dwarfing' back to infancy when it 
reincarnates. The spirit, in or out of incarna- 
tion, is in full identity, Can we not conceive 
of one trying a boat, little by little, step by step, 
ere he seizes the oars and pulls out into the full 
stream ? So the spirit watches over its own and 
bides its time for fullness of manifestation. The 
selfhood can and does come and go, and waits 
upon its tools of mind and brain until it is able 
to step in and assume command intelligently; 
using them and testing them until they re- 
spond, at last, in fullness of maturity, to the 
soul's need of expression. 

"And the mother need not fear that she is 



96 An Occultist's Travels. 

singing her lullaby to a monster or cynic philos- 
opher, full-fledged, who scoffs, through his meal 
of milk at the inadequacy of his environments ; 
she is nursing her 'bud of humanity' which has 
existed, indeed, since a spark, it sprang, back in 
the eons of time, from the bosom of flame, but 
for her it is a waiting, dreaming soul, which has 
selected and been selected into this same envir- 
onment through the aid of spirit, in obedience to 
the very law of attraction which brought the two 
together in the past, loving and beloved. 

"Many say they do not want to live again; 
certainly not, not the same life ; but a new life is 
a continuation, not a repetition. Personalities 
pass; individuals remain unchanged save as 
they are built into by the character structure 
which perfects the true and eternal ego. The 
new life marks but another chapter in the great 
Human book. 

"As to Karma, we know that as we sow so 
must we reap. Regarding the aid and sympa- 
thy we must render to our brother, struggling 
in the meshes wrought by his own acts, see to it 
that we judge not, neither withhold. That is 
our part, if we are progressing spiritually. 

"By these acts of mercy and love are we 



An Occultist's Travels. 97 

destined to mitigate the Karma of some suffer- 
ing soul which is thus brought into touch with 
heavenly ministrations, and gradually released 
from the operations of the law. The child is 
burned by putting its hand into the fire. 

"Cause and effect follow one another with 
unerring accuracy, but woe be to the one who 
stands aside through misunderstanding of the 
Karmic law, and withholds the kindly oil which 
shall alleviate its pain! New Karmic condi- 
tions, and a disastrous chain of cause and effect 
would thus be established, reacting upon the 
one who shall judge his brother, withholding 
sympathy and help ! Doing so, we are involved 
in our own acts, and the conditions which they 
create. These we have begotten; with our 
brother's we have naught to do, save to love him 
and help him. We do not necessarily rein- 
carnate in order that we may commit all of the 
sins (ignorances) which we are in the midst of 
here ; but if we fail in help or sympathy with 
our brother who has fallen into the mire, then 
shall we be brought into such personal relation 
with those same evils that we shall learn, 
through experience, to be merciful, understand- 
ing, and to judge not. 



98 An Occultist's Travels. 

"After all, reincarnation means but a Day 
from Home ! Heaven is Home ! The labourer 
goes forth to return at nightfall. Earth is more 
than a starting-point. Its seed-times and har- 
vest are wrought out here. But the Eternal 
Harvest is the rendering unto God of the accu- 
mulated talents of many lives, which as cap- 
tains of industry we have faithfully garnered 
up through the ages of probation and trial here. 
This makes it imperative that we live well and 
royally, and to live well, is to Love Much. 

"Laura Fitzhugh Preston. 

"Fernandina, Fla." 



An Occultist's Travels. 99 



V. 



My desire to see ice and snow again, and 
once more be able to shiver, was fulfilled more 
quickly than I anticipated. The Pacific Coast 
Steamship Co., whose ships run from San 
Diego, on the Mexican frontier, to Alaska, ar- 
ranges in summer several excursions from Ta- 
coma in Washington to Alaska, and so I im- 
mediately joined the first one, which left Ta- 
coma on the 8th of June. From Los Angeles 
to this place is a journey of sixty hours by rail, 
before reaching the steamer. I again passed, as 
in 1904, the snow-clad Mount Shasta, 14,450 
feet high, with its famous Shasta springs, then 
Portland in Oregon, where the Exposition was 
being held, and at last reached Tacoma, which, 
surrounded by mountains, is magnificently situ- 
ated on the water, from which Mt. Rainier, 
completely covered with snow, rises to the 
height of 14,440 feet. Here, with perhaps one 
hundred and fifty passengers, I went on board 



100 An Occultist's Travels. 

the steamer "Spokane." Our first landing was 
at Seattle, the second Port Victoria at Van- 
couver, which belongs to British Columbia, Can- 
ada, then we went forty-two hours northward 
between the island of Vancouver and the conti- 
nent of British Columbia, till, as the first stop- 
ping-place we reached Ketchikan in Alaska, 
where our ship was received by a band of In- 
dians with music. The United States purchased 
Alaska in 1867 for $7,200,000. The House of 
Representatives in Washington opposed the 
purchase, as many of them thought it valueless. 
To-day Alaska produces about $30,000,000 in 
gold annually, aside from the great wealth in 
fisheries. Russia might, therefore, greatly re- 
gret having sold Alaska. Alaska has the great- 
est gold stamp-mill in the world, the "Tread- 
well mine," whose owners are said to be the 
London Rothschilds. The journey was beauti- 
ful everywhere; as soon as we approached the 
Taku glacier, which rises from the sea between 
two mountain peaks and is about half a mile 
wide and two hundred feet high, blocks of ice in 
the strangest forms, blue as sapphire, came float- 
ing toward us. A wonderful spectacle! The 
most northern point which we reached was 



An Occultist's Travels. 101 

Skagway and the White Pass, which travellers 
must traverse to reach the Klondike gold fields. 
An icy chill came to us from the Muir glacier, 
and our ship slowly ploughed her way through 
the ice-sea of Glacier Bay. On the heights of 
Killisnoo, on Admiralty Island, we fished with 
excellent success ; a sixty-pound halibut was the 
largest catch. 

In Sitka, too, the capital of Alaska, on Bar- 
anof Island, we stopped and saw the Greek 
church which the Russians left there ; true, it is 
not the Kremlin in Moscow, which I visited in 
1887, but it possesses several oil paintings 
which one would not have expected to see in this 
forsaken country. The inhabitants of this re- 
gion are the Alaska Indians, but they are toler- 
ably civilized. One still sees many "totem 
poles," the idols carved from the trunk of a tree 
by these Indians; but the United States has 
done a great deal here and established missions 
everywhere. It was broad daylight until eleven 
o'clock at night, and the sun rose again at two 
o'clock in the morning. This excursion lasted 
eleven days; we reached Seattle again on the 
19th of June, 1905. 

I have now visited the principal objects of in- 



102 An Occultist's Travels. 

terest in the United States except Niagara, 
which I unfortunately passed at night, and can 
sum up my opinion as follows : "The Yosemite 
is beautiful ; the Yellowstone is wonderful ; the 
Grand Canon of Arizona is colossal, and 
Alaska, with its fjords and mountains, glaciers, 
and rivers, possibilities and distances, is all of 
these. It is not only colossal, but wonderful 
and beautiful as well." 

On the way back from Tacoma I again spent 
several days in San Francisco, to see Miller and 
learn whether he would now be ready to go with 
me to de Eochas in France. But business mat- 
ters prevented his doing so at present ; he prom- 
ised, however, to accompany me to France in 
April, 1906, which I informed de Eochas. His 
answer, dated Chateau de l'Agnelas, near 
Voiron, June 20, 1905, expressed his pleasure 
at my intelligence. I hope I shall succeed in 
taking Miller to France next spring. 

I will describe a few more seances which pro- 
duced something new. In one which took place 
May 25, 1905, a white ball like muslin again 
sank from the ceiling before the curtain with a 
swinging movement to the floor, then rolled to 
my seat, upward along my left leg, against every 



An Occultist's Travels. 103 

natural law, pressed closely to my heart, rolled 
down again upon the floor, directly at my feet, 
where it quickly developed as a spirit and told 
me that she was Jemima Clark (an English 
medium) and had made the attempt to con- 
nect herself with my magnetism, which was 
usually too fiery for such experiments: yet she 
had succeeded, and hoped that I was pleased, 
which I willingly admitted. 

This is the same spirit, who in the test seance 
at the Palace Hotel produced the best phe- 
nomena, next to Betsy, the main control. The 
following experiment was also interesting: 
Betsy appeared before the curtain with Miller 
whom she requested to bring the lamp, which 
stood about twenty-three feet away, so that we 
saw her, for about three minutes, fully illum- 
inated, after which she sank 'down.* A former 
patient, the widow of a Grand Duke of a South 
German reigning House, who had died about 
eight weeks before, also came, embraced me with 
great delight, gave her full name, and showed 
the same mannerisms, which I had often no- 
ticed in her in life. To prove an identity, as is 

*See Aksakov : Animismus und Spiritismus (Ani- 
mism and Spiritualism), Leipsic, Oswald Mutze, 1894, 
I, p. 240, and Florence Marryat : There is no Death. 



104 An Occultist's Travels. 

well known to one familiar with occultism, is 
the most difficult thing in such cases. A short 
time after death it is more possible; but when 
the spirit has progressed farther in its develop- 
ment, that is, has especially developed the 
principle of love, it has, according to my ex- 
perience, to struggle to forget the mire of earth 
more and more in order to progress, and then 
the identity is difficult to prove, because the 
personality has vanished, and only the indi- 
viduality has remained, which, however, usually 
has to develop in a totally different direction 
from what the sphere of earth permits. 

I also attended a "trumpet sitting." I heard 
the trumpets flying about in all the corners of 
the room, heard voices speak through them, 
saw everywhere little flames from which words 
were spoken ; but as the room, meanwhile, was 
kept perfectly dark, I will not describe this 
seance as at all conclusive. In another seance 
Betsy told me that she would show me, for 
once, what often happened in seances with other 
materialization mediums, that is, that fre- 
quently the medium himself, disguised as a 
spirit, appeared, the term for it was "imper- 
sonation." She asked me to come directly to 



An Occultist's Travels. 105 

the curtain and told me that the medium, in a 
trance, would come out in white muslin, and 
the muslin would then suddenly disappear ; and 
so it was ! I grasped the medium, who had 
come out of the cabinet disguised as a spirit, 
by the hand. Like a flash of lightning the 
white veiling vanished, and 1 clasped the 
medium with my hand. 

In all these seances Miller, if he was in the 
cabinet, and I saw the phantoms myself with- 
out him, was obliged to clap his hands contin- 
ually, in order to silence my doubt whether the 
phantom might perhaps be a transfiguration. 
Kiesewetter* writes concerning this: "Here it 
is only suggested that there is a kind of pseudo- 
materialization, in which the medium, lying in 
hypnosis, walks in a somnambulistic condition, 
playing the part of spirit, wherein the mysteri- 
ous vanishing of the spiritual veilings point to 
a commencing magical activity of the psychic. 

After having previously called attention to 
the relative value of spiritual communications, 
I have no reason to quote them, for the reader 
now knows that they are to he taken critically. 

*Karl Kiesewetter: Geschichte des neueren Okkul- 
tismus (History of Modern Occultism), Leipzig, Wil- 
helm Friedrich, p. 607. 



106 An Occultist's Travels. 

For instance, this time an unhappy spirit — 
the control Betsy said she had been too much 
occupied to be able to prevent it — stole into his 
seances. It was a female black spirit, that 
went about the circle of fourteen persons, strik- 
ing and spitting upon nearly all of them, and 
continually using abusive language. She 
touched me on the left leg and said in English : 
"You want to go to Europe with this medium — 
I'll fix you" (that is, I'll prevent the mani- 
festations !). Betsy told me afterward that this 
spirit had given a minister of the Episcopal 
church two hundred thousand dollars, because 
he had promised her that, after her death, she 
should see Christ. As this had not followed, 
she was so furious that she injured Spiritualism 
wherever she could. Whole companies of 
Jesuit spirits were doing the same, and in Eu- 
rope Spiritualism would have advanced much 
farther, if such spirits, whose influences and 
thoughts hung like a wall over Europe, did not 
so eagerly oppose Spiritualism.'* "The church 
does not want to lose her power/' The church 
does not want to lose the stream of millions 

*See Dr. Friese: Stimmen aus dent Reich der Geis- 
ter (Voices from the Realm of Spirits), Leipzig, Os- 
wald Mutze, 1897, p. 92. 



An Occultist's Travels. 107 

which, under the name of Peter s Pence, is an- 
nually directed to Borne, and happiness in the 
world beyond the grave is made dependent upon 
the means of grace of the church. Christ's suc- 
cessor has become a bank director in the Vati- 
can. It is no longer: "Feed my lambs! but 
shear my sheep!"* 

In the year 1887 I visited the Vatican in 
Rome, and now understood the power of the 
Catholic Church. The vast magnificence of the 
Vatican, as well as that of the church of St. 
Mark in Venice, in which I heard a Te Deum 
with trombones, which penetrated the very 
depths of my being, and the Kremlin in Mos- 
cow, exert in themselves a very powerful im- 
pression upon the ordinary man, which is in- 
creased by the processions, and which even I 
myself, though a Protestant, was unable to 
escape. 

In San Francisco I also had an opportunity 
to meet a second crystal-gazer, who was recom- 
mended to me by friends. Her name is Mile. 
M. Wille, 310 Ellis Street. She was not in- 
ferior to Mrs. Ingalls in Ocean Park, of whom 

*Dr. du Prel: Der Tod, etc. (Death, etc.), p. ill and 
following. 



108 An Occultist's Travels. 

I have already spoken; only her crystal con- 
sisted of a glass ball as large as an ordinary 
marble. She saw in this glass ball, after I had 
held it in my hand three minutes, in pictures, 
precisely like Mrs. Ingalls, all the principal 
events of my life. 

On the journey to Alaska I had taken for 
reading Parerga and Paralipomena by Schopen- 
hauer, in which I found the following asser- 
tion: "Neither our actions nor our career in 
life is our own work, but probably that which 
no one thinks of our character and existence. 
For, on the basis of these, and the circum- 
stances and external events occurring in the 
strictest causal connection, our acts and life ca- 
reer move forward with absolute necessity. 
Therefore, at the birth of man, his whole course 
of life, down to the details, is irrevocably ap- 
pointed, so that a somnambulist of the highest 
power could predict it exactly. We ought to 
keep in mind this great and absolute truth in 
the consideration and judgment of our course in 
life, our acts, and our sorrows." 

"I teach," so Dr. du Prel sums up the mean- 
ing of his system built upon the perception" — 
that man has entered the earthly life of his own 



An Occultist's Travels. 109 

choice; that he is the product of his own de- 
velopment; that man ought to address to him- 
self all the charges with which he loads God, 
Destiny, and Nature ; that the sufferings of this 
life result in the transcendental benefit of our 
character."* 

A. J. Davis f also positively denies free will 
in the words "The doctrine of the free will or 
action of the soul is positively contradicted by 
everything in nature and in mankind/' which 
assertion he then pursues in detail. Baron 
Hellenbach expresses himself as follows : "We 
have perceived that freedom of will in the phe- 
nomenal world is only apparent, and is one of 
the prejudices of the ordinary mind, in the 
same way as our personality and all nature, 
whose real foundation and factors lie in a su- 
persensible world." 

Hellenbach has also expressed himself else- 
where in detail about the apparent liberty of 

*Du Prel draws this belief from the pre-existence of 
transcendental subjects, in which he assumes that the 
act of will directed to re-incarnation coincides with the 
procreative impulse of the parents. 

tA.. J. Davis : The Teacher. 

%L. B. Hellenbach : Die V orurtheile der Menschheit 
(The Prejudices of Mankind), Leipzig, Mutze, II, p. 02. 
See also his little known, but important work, Die 
Magie der Zahlen (The Magic of Numbers), the same. 



110 'An Occultist's Travels. 

the will. My own experience with somnam- 
bulists and mediums who possessed the gift of 
looking into the future is, that man has a com- 
pulsory itinerary, which he cannot alter, and 
which brings him, for the most part, trials to 
develop his character. His duty is to accept 
them in humility, according to Christ's exam- 
ple and relying upon Christ's word. For in- 
stance, Christ was to be betrayed, and the temp- 
tation to do so came to Judas ; the latter might 
not have wanted to do it — that was his sin — 
but then it would have been done by some other 
representative of the species "man" ! 

The earthly life is to the majority of man- 
kind a vale of tears, but even a period of eighty 
years is only like a dream of the night in com- 
parison with eternity, and he who has not 
learned to know misfortune does not know how 
to value the happiness which the next exist- 
ence offers — this is the quintessence of all the 
wisdom of life. 

"The necessity of our acts seems to take from 
us the responsibility for them, and yet almost 
every one, if he rises even a small degree above 
the brute, feels that this is not so. His satis- 
faction or dissatisfaction, after a deed is done, 



An Occultisms Travels. Ill 

speaks loudly against it ; every one feels that lie 
really ought to act in this way or that. There 
is no doubt about the 'Thou shalt' existing 
within us; even the criminal feels under cer- 
tain circumstances that he has done something 
which he ought not to have done. From this 
'ought' has arisen the belief in the freedom of 
the will; we have seen that this is only appar- 
ent, and yet we feel the responsibility — not for 
our acts, but for our being. "* 

Schopenhauer, too, has raised no barrier 
against responsibility; he believes with Kant 
that liberty can be reconciled with empirical 
necessity; he says: Man, it is true, cannot act 
otherwise than according to his nature ; but he 
might be different; therefore the responsibility 
does not concern the deed, but always the char- 
acter of the doer. The expression, "I am 
ashamed of having done such a thing/' is a 
prejudice of the ordinary mind, and ought to 
run, "I am ashamed of my nature in being able 
or compelled to do such a thing ; I ought to have 
done — that is, to have been — otherwise." 

Dr. du Prel's mode of explanation, that the 



*Hellenbach : Die V orurtheile der Menschheit (The 
Prejudices of Mankind), II, p. 90. 



112 An Occultist's Travels. 

transcendental subject was the organizing prin- 
ciple in us, so that we ourselves were the archi- 
tects of our earthly lives, making the doctrines 
of Schopenhauer and Hellenbach still more in- 
telligible.* 

Very beautiful are the words of the poem 
which the medium, Princess Mary Ear ad j a, has 
written under inspiration, for which reason I 
append them here: 

"Man may not cross the plans of the Most 

High; 
It is not for him to decide on death or life. 
The lessons of the earthly life he must learn ; 
He is not permitted to leave it at his pleasure. 
The body is a garment that is laid aside, 
When the soul has grown beyond its worn-out 

shroud, 
And has become mature for transformation. "f 

In the same meaning, Goethe says : 

"And so, once more, 'tis as the planets would ; 
Conditions, limits, laws, our fate decide ; 

*The Philosophy of Mysticism, New York: The 
Path, 144 Madison ave., $7.50. 

tMary Karadja: Zum Licht (To the Light), Leipzig, 
Max Spohr, 1900. 



An Occultist's Travels. 113 

We will the right, because we see we should ; 
And thus by our own hands our wills are 
tied. 
The heart drives out its hopes, a much-loved 
brood ; 
At the stern must wishes and whims subside, 
So, after many years in seeming free, 
More closely fettered than at first are we."* 
(Translation by James Freeman Clarke.) 

To-day, July 18, 1905, I received the July 
number of Psychical Studies, in which I read 
that Professor Charles Richetf has proposed 
the expression, "Metapsychics," for the whole 
province of investigation which is usually 
termed "Occult Science." As this designation 
seems to me, as well as to the editor of Psychi- 
cal Studies, to be very happily chosen, I shall 
henceforth employ it. 

Here in Los Angeles, as occurs every year, a 
Spiritualist camp was established in Mineral 
Park from the 25th of June to the 25th of 

*Goethe : Necessity in Gott und Welt (God and the 
World), Leipzig (Bibl. Institut), I, p. 324. 

tLudwig Deinhard: Der 5 Internationale Psycholo- 
gen-Kongress in Rom (The 5th International Psycho- 
logical Congress in Rome), Psychical Studies, 1905, p. 
405. 



114 f An Occultist's Travels. 

July, 1905. About a dozen mediums of all 
phases had met there, but not a single one could 
be used. Such pseudo-mediums do more harm 
than good, since they chatter the most absurd 
nonsense. In Germany, such a thing would not 
be possible. The police would soon put a check 
on this sort of liberty, which, it is true, is act- 
ing without judgment, as brutal force never 
ripens good fruit. Genuine and good mediums 
are rare, and governments ought rather to ap- 
point trained experts for the investigation of 
the phenomena and the testing of real mediums ; 
but when shall we — especially in Germany — 
progress so far? Yesterday (August 1) I vis- 
ited by recommendation a young lady, who calls 
herself "Cleo," Psychist and Clairvoyant, and 
lives at 210 Mercantile Place. She speaks 
English and also German, but the latter not 
fluently, though she said she was born in Em- 
den (East Friesland). She requested me to 
write six questions, with my name and day of 
birth, and give them to her in a closed en- 
velope; I did this in another room and then 
handed her the closed envelope. She took it in 
her hand, and told me fluently my questions in 
succession and my name! This Oleo would 



An Occultist's Travels. 115 

easily have earned the "prix Burdin" of 3000 
francs* which Professor Ludwig Biichner and 
Professor C. Mendel wrongly believe will never 
be earned by a clairvoyant. Du Pre! has an- 
swered the misrepresentation of the original 
facts on the part of Dr. Mendel in a wayt 
which is really excellent. One really ought not 
to believe that a physician of such reputation 
as Professor Mendel could put forth into the 
world so pitiable an essay. Cleo proved to me 
absolutely, with regard to the past, that she 
possesses the gift of clairvoyance; whether her 
predictions concerning my future will be cor- 
rect is to be determined; at any rate, I was glad 
to hear that I need remain only four or five 
years longer upon this earth. I hope she is not 
mistaken! I feel like Thomas Hobbes, who,, 
when his physician, on the 4th of December, 
1679, in reply to his question whether he might 

*Dr. Pigeaire: Pruissance de Felectricite animate 
(Power of Animal Electricity), Paris, 1839, pp. 116-118; 
Dr. Frappart, Lettres sur le magnetisme et le somnam- 
bulisme & V occasion de Mademoiselle Pigeaire (Letters 
upon magnetism and somnambulism in reference to 
Miss Pigeaire), p. 23. 

^Professor Dr. C. Mendel in Berlin und der Hyp- 
notismus (Professor Dr. C. Mendel in Berlin and Hyp- 
notism), by Dr. Med. and Phil. Carl Gerster and Dr. 
Phil. Carl du Prel, Leipzig, William Friedrich, 1890. 



116 An Occultist's Travels. 

expect to live, answered in the negative, said to 
him: "Well, then, I will rejoice to find a hole 
through which I can creep out of this world." 

Du Prel,* too, is of the same opinion, when 
he writes: "When we by the benefit of death, 
have recovered from the earthly life and awake 
to the life in the world beyond, we shall say, 
like the dying Socrates to his friend Krito: 
'We must sacrifice a cock to ^sculapius.' " 

*Du Prel: Der Tod, das Jenseits, das Leben im 
Jenseits (Death, the World Beyond, Life in the World 
Beyond), Munich, 1899, p. 39. 



An Occultist's Travels. 117 



VI. 



Whoever is familiar with the older magnetic 
literature* will find an enormous quantity of 

*The most important sources are : Dr. Arnold Wien- 
holt, Heilkraft des tierischen Magnetismus (Healing 
Power of Animal Magnetism), 5 volumes, Lemgo, 1802; 
Dr. Friedrich Huf eland, Ueber Sympathie (Upon Sym- 
pathy), Weimar, 181 1; Professor C. A. F. Kluge, Ver- 
such einer Darstellung des animalischen Magnetismus 
(Attempt at a Description of Animal Magnetism), Ber- 
lin, 181 1 ; Archiv fur tierischen Magnetismus (Archives 
of Animal Magnetism), 12 volumes, by Professor 
Eschenmayer, Professor Kieser, Professor Nasse, Pro- 
fessor Nees von Esenbeck, Altenburg (Brockhaus), 
1817-1824; Professor Nees von Esenbeck, Entwick- 
lungsgeschichte des magnetischen Schlafs und Traums 
(History of the Development of the Magnetic Sleep 
and Dreams), Bonn, 182Q; Dupotet, Elementare Dars- 
tellung des tierischen Magnetismus, Grimma, 185 1 ; Pro- 
fessor J. Ennemoser,Anleitung zur mesmerischen Praxis 
(Guidance in Mesmeric Practice), Stuttgart, 1852; 
Baron von Reichenbach, Der sensitive Mensch (The 
Sensitive Human Being), Stuttgart, 1854; ,E)r. George 
Barth, Der Lebensmagnetismus (Magnetism), Heil- 
bronn, 1852; Justinus Kerner, Die Seherin vcn Pre- 
vorst (The Seeress of Prevorst), Leipzig, Reclam; 
Cahagnet, Der Verkehr mit den Verstorbenen (Inter- 
course with the Departed), Hildburghhausen, 1851; 
Deleuze, Praktischer Unterricht iiber den tierischen 
Magnetismus (Practical Instruction in Animal Magnet- 
ism), Stuttgart, 1854. 



118 An Occultist's Travels. 

analogous examples of clairvoyance. It is only 
to be regretted that it is difficult to obtain them, 
since du Prel, usually the best treasure-house 
of such curiosities, rarely mentions the place of 
publication and the date when these books ap- 
peared. 

In the "Archives of Animal Magnetism" all 
this is still to be most conveniently found; but 
the majority of these works are mouldering in 
the libraries, and I have spent years in pur- 
chasing the principal ones. The libraries of 
du Prel, Carl Kiesewetter, and Dr. Ed. Reich, 
the latter which seemed to me particularly val- 
uable, I saw in 1900 during my visit to Scheve- 
ningen — ought to be kept together for the gen- 
eral benefit. • 

It is well known that the history of animal 
magnetism is a blot upon the history of medi- 
cine. It will not be forgotten that there were 
physicians who drove the talented Mesmer into 
a dishonorable exile, because he cured the sick 
without pills; I myself fared little better, 
though the commission of eleven physicians 
appointed by the Paris Academy for the inves- 
tigation of Magnetism and Somnambulism, 
after five years' investigation, voted unani- 



An Occultist's Travels. 119 

mously in 1831 for Magnetism, and corrob- 
orated all the remarkable phenomena at- 
tributed to Somnambulism.* 

Professor Ed. Gasc. Desfosses,f who has 
compiled excellently the latest experiences in 
the province of magnetism, writes as follows : 

"The doctrine of vital magnetism will then 
have made a long stage, a long scientific noviti- 
ate ; but it will end, we are firmly convinced, by 
triumphing, and by finally conquering its legiti- 
mate place in science. It must be recognized 
that very recently a victory of considerable im- 
portance has been gained by the idea of mag- 
netism: a decision of the Minister of Public 
Instruction, dated March 26th, 1895, has 
classed among the great free higher schools the 
Practical School of Magnetism and Massage 
founded by M. Le Professeur H. Durville, and 
placed under the patronage of the Magnetic 
Society of France." 

True, there are some praiseworthy exceptions 
among German physicians; for instance, Sur- 

*Professor Dr. J. Ochorowicz : Magnetismus und 
Hypnotismus (Magnetism and Hypnotism), Leipzig, 
Oswald Mutze, 1897, p. 75. 

tGasc. Desfosses : Magnetisme Vital, Paris (So- 
ciete d'Editions Scientifiques), 4 Rue Antoine, Dubois, 
1897, p. 26. 



120 An Occultist's Travels. 

geon-General von Stuckrad personally ex- 
pressed to me the following opinion, which I 
will add in his honor and the interest of the 
cause : 

"After repeated treatment by Professor 
Willy Keichel, I have reached the conviction 
that by the direct contact through laying the 
palms of the hands on various parts of the 
body there passes from Professor Keichel* to 
the patients an invigorating, extremely bene- 
ficial influence, which may be compared to an 
agreeable and strengthening current affecting 
the nervous system; under the palm of the 
hand a feeling of increased warmth instantly 
developed in me, and quickly spread, radiating 
in every direction, whether the application of 
the hands was on the back laterally from the 
spine, or in the pit of the stomach, in the re- 
gion of the heart. The direct effect of the 
magnetic treatment consisted in the undoubted 
feeling of warmth, strengthening, and invigora- 
tion, combined with the comfort of repeated, 

*See Willy Reichel: Healing Magnetism, etc., 3d edi- 
tion, Berlin, 1896, p. 00, and Journal du Magnetisme 
(Journal of Magnetism), 50th year, Paris, 1895, April 
number. 



An Occultist's Travels. 121 

very deep inspiration. What has hitherto be- 
come known to me concerning the efficaciousness 
of animal magnetism, especially through its 
obvious success in curing various diseases, leads 
me to the earnest wish that it might be generally 
and minutely studied, and find the most ex- 
tensive application possible in healing institu- 
tions of every description ; and this wish is fully 
supported and justified by the literature and 
practice of many years past, as well as of the 
present time. 

"Dr. von Stuckrad, Surgeon-General. 
"Berlin, August, 1894." 

Dr. du Prel* says: "The accidental circum- 
stance that a physician, Mesmer, discovered 
animal magnetism, has caused it to be regarded 
chiefly in its physiological effects, that is, as a 
branch of therapeutics. But owing to a com- 
plication of circumstances, there has been end- 
less strife with official medical science. Through 
Eeichenbach the investigation was transferred 
to the province of physics, where the proofs are 
exposed to fewer objections. Summing up the 
whole, it may be asserted to-day that animal 

*Du Prel: Death, the World Beyond, etc., Munich. 



122 An Occultist's Travels. 

magnetism is proved (1) by the physiological 
changes in the body of a diseased recipient ; 
(2) by the phenomena of light connected with 
it: Sensitives see the odic luminosities when 
awake in a dark room, somnambulists in sleep 
without a dark room; (3) by various phe- 
nomena of motion caused by the odic radia- 
tions; for instance, the deviation of the mag- 
netic needle, etc. ; (4) by chemical changes on 
the photographic plate. But, as if nothing had 
been done, voices are still heard which deny 
magnetism. 

"It is sometimes said that the effects of mag- 
netism are merely the results of suggestion ; that 
a patient is not cured by imparting the vitality 
of another, but by the influence of his mind, 
or auto-suggestion. These objections, however, 
are extremely narrow-minded, because they re- 
gard the suggestion which I give to the patient 
as a conception of the brain and nothing more. 
This mere conception, as such, cannot effect a 
cure, but acts only in cases in which the brain 
of the recipient has at its command a sufficient 
amount of vital power, which can be directed to 
the diseased portion of the body designated by 
the suggestion. In mesmeric healing the vital 



An Occultist's Travels. 123 

power of the magnetiser is communicated to 
another organism ; in healing by suggestion the 
magnetism of the patient himself is put in mo- 
tion and guided to the seat of the disease. 
Whoever affirms that the mere conception of 
the brain can heal without any mediating 
power between the brain and the seat of dis- 
ease, asserts an effect without a cause." 

Since the physicists of the University of 
Nancy, France, Charpentier and Blondlot, have 
informed the Paris Academy of Sciences that 
they have succeeded in fixing in the human 
body rays of light similar to those emitted by 
the mysterious substance radium, the learning 
of the schools will soon be convinced of human 
healing magnetism. We are now living in a 
time when — remember merely the discoveries of 
Hittorf, Crookes, Rontgen, Becquerel, Curie 
and Le Bon — new phenomena of light and 
waves of ether are constantly being reported. 
But, unfortunately, the words of Schiller con- 
cerning professional scholars still apply to the 
majority of physicians: "Every expansion of 
the science by which he earns his living makes 
him uneasy, because it sends him new work or 
makes his past labour useless, every important 



124 An Occultist's Travels. 

innovation startles him, for it destroys the old 
school method which he mastered with so much 
toil; it exposes him to the danger of losing all 
the work of his past life. Who has cried out 
against reformers more than the throng of pro- 
fessional scholars? Who checks the progress 
of useful revolutions in the realm of knowledge 
more than these same men? Every light kin- 
dled by a successful genius, no matter in what 
branch of science it may be, makes their insuffi- 
ciency visible ; they fight with bitter anger, with 
malice, with despair, because, with the school 
system which they are defending, they are fight- 
ing for their whole existence. Therefore, there 
is no more implacable foe, no more envious offi- 
cial colleague, no more willing persecutor, than 
the professional scholar."* 

After having now seen a large number of 
mediums of all kinds, I must admit, that even 
where the performances are genuine, a large 
portion of their statements always rests upon 
telepathy. This fact can and ought not to be 
shut out; they say that we should like to hear 

*Schiller , s Works, Cotta, 1877, 4th edition, p. 214, and 
following : "What is and for what purpose do we study- 
Universal History?" An academic commencement 
speech. 



An Occultist's Travels. 125 

what lies in our own consciousness, that is 
what w r e hope will come. There are, it is true, 
rare exceptions — I have known such — but even 
with these the factor of telepathy should be 
absolutely reckoned with, if we wish to move 
safely. The member of the Keichstag Stocker 
is not so entirely wrong when he warns us of 
the perils, that is, of the abuse of Spiritualism.* 
It is a two-edged sword, and only people of re- 
sponsible character and scientific education 
ought to occupy themselves with it. Whoever 
does not stand on a firm footing may easily be 
led into by-paths by placing implicit confidence 
in mediums, whose statements are solely the 
reflection of his own ideas, so far as the matter 
concerns the so-called revelations of Spiritual- 
ism. Professor Crookes wrote very aptly con- 
cerning this in 1874 to a Russian lady, who had 
asked him whether he was a Spiritualist as 
follows : 

"All that I am convinced of is, that invisible 
and intelligent beings exist, who say that they 
are the spirits of dead persons. But proof that 
they really are the individuals they assume to 

*See Uebersinnliche Welt (Transcendental World), 
August-September, 1900, p. 355, and Psychical Studies, 
1900, p. 186. 



126 An Occultist's Travels. 

be, which I require in order to believe it, I have 
never received, though I am disposed to admit 
that many of my friends assert that they have 
actually obtained the desired proofs, and I my- 
self have already frequently been many times on 
the verge of this conviction."* 

Mystification is one of the most frequent 
phenomena of spiritualism. But is there no 
genuine coin because some is counterfeit? It 
is much to be regretted that the classified works 
of Rochas have not yet been translated into 
English. He has shown that from the living 
human being an inner essence of being may be 
separated, which lives on, feels, works and 
thinks, so the experimental proof of immortality 
is already present in Animism. A Kardec has 
been translated, while translations of such emi- 
nently important and undoubtedly valuable 
scientific investigations are still delayed, which 
may perhaps be explained, at least partially, by 
the fact that the representatives of official sci- 
ence at the third International Psychological 
Congress, held in Munich in 1896, represented 
a psychology without psyche. True, hundreds 

*Professor Angelo Brofferio: Fur den Spiritismns 
(In Behalf of Spiritualism), Leipzig, Max Spohr, 1894, 
p. 319. 



An Occultist's Travels. 127 

of foreign scholars of the first rank who upheld 
metaphysics could be cited; but official science, 
especially in Germany, still considers it "bad 
form" to be interested in it. But the time is 
drawing nearer, when we shall be able to say 
"Sic derisa diu tandem bona causa triumphat" 
(Thus at last truth, long derided, triumphed). 
Therefore, the deep thinker, Dr. du Prel, cor- 
rectly remarks: "From the standpoint of ma- 
terialism, to which love and marriage are only 
physical, but not metaphysical — which opinion 
Alexander von Humboldt^ is also said to have 
held — marriage appears a crime; for parents 
have no right, for their own pleasure, to bring a 
new being into this existence, for such beings, 
lacking the metaphysical background could only 
be regarded as impostures. Only when love is 
identical with the transcendental act of will of 
the being pressing into life, is marriage to be 
justified."! Therefore let whoever wishes to 
approach the grave, wavering figures from an- 
other world, do so always with doubting, in- 
vestigating mind, this will do no harm; but 

*See Mainlander: Philosophie der Erlosung (Philos- 
ophy of the Redemption), I, p. 349. 

tDu Prel: Die Philosophie der Mystik (The Philos- 
ophy of Mysticism), Leipsic, Gunther, p. 472. 



128 An Occultist's Travels. 

whoever does not feel his heart joyfully stirred 
by their approach, even finds it unpleasant be- 
cause distrust has its root there, let him avoid 
them, for he cannot detain them. We human 
beings of flesh and blood also like to stay only 
where we are welcome. 

On the 19th of August, 1905, I found occa- 
sion to visit the newly discovered gold fields of 
Nevada. The trip there is somewhat compli- 
cated, for though Nevada joins California, there 
is no direct road, but one must go by way of 
San Francisco to reach Reno in Nevada, from 
which three different companies have built a 
branch road to Tonopah. From Los Angeles 
to Tonopah is a journey of two days and two 
nights. Whoever wishes to go east or north 
from San Francisco must cross the bay twice. 
First to Oakland on a ferry boat, then the road 
runs for an hour along the bay to Port Costa, 
where the whole train is placed on a steam ferry 
boat which carries it across the bay to the sta- 
tion of Benicia on the other side. Such a 
transportation of an entire train upon a ship 
across the water is very interesting for a novice. 
A boat of this kind will take thirty-eight 
freight, or twenty passenger, cars at once. Here 



r An Occultist's Travels. 129 

the bay is calm, but on my journey to Alaska 
our train was also carried on a ferry boat across 
the Columbia river between Portland and Ta- 
coma, where it is wide and rapid. I cannot re- 
member ever having been transported in Europe 
in this way. 

The way from Reno to Tonopah is at first 
extremely pretty, but then it enters the desert; 
true, mountains (the eastern side of the Sierra 
Nevada) are visible on both sides, but other- 
wise the route is dreary, only Lake Walker, 
forty miles long, giving a little variety. 

Tonopah is a gold-mining city in the true 
sense of the word. Saloons, tingle tangle, 
gambling houses with roulette a la Monte Carlo, 
only here one does not see thousand-franc notes, 
but one-dollar coins, principally in tents or 
wooden sheds, dirty and destitute of any touch 
of refinement. I slept at a so-called hotel (Mer- 
chant Hotel) in a room which the dairy maid 
at Eussdorf at the inn in Upper Bavaria, 
where, in 1897, I lodged with a mountain peas- 
ant, would have refused to occupy.* 

*The worst hotel I encountered on my travels was at 
Vera Cruz, on the Gulf of Mexico, for that had not 
even a roof. In Central Egypt, the excrements are cov- 
ered with sand, instead of being treated with water. 



130 An Occultist's Travels. 

The whole country around Tonopah is 
worked by the gold-seekers, and the desert sand 
whirls through these extremely primitive ham- 
lets. From Tonopah automobiles run to Gold- 
field through the deserts, whose soil consists of 
rock covered with pebbles and sand, so that the 
trip of thirty-one miles to Goldfield can be made 
in two hours. It is a peculiar feeling to pass 
at sunset in an automobile through the wilder- 
ness. Nothing grows there except dried bushes, 
and here and there the yucca palm. 

Goldfield is a* city of tents, in a deep valley 
through which the sand continually whirls. But 
I was obliged to go farther to the Ralston desert, 
between Goldfield and Bullfrog. A tent in the 
midst of the wilderness was my lodging for the 
night. 

The Goldfield mines, in less than two years, 
have produced more than four million dollars 
in gold. The worst feature is the lack of water, 
which must be brought in casks twenty miles by 
waggon to the Ralston desert ; but, nevertheless, 
everybody flocks there, and there is now a road 
being built to Goldfield. Rattlesnakes and liz- 

which, it is true, is well there, because water is usually 
lacking. 



An Occultist's Travels. 131 

ards are the only creatures that live there, and 
it is fortunate that the rattlesnakes leave their 
hiding-places only in the hot noonday, otherwise 
one might have very unpleasant visitors in an 
open tent at night. 

In the desert of Nevada, as formerly in the 
Libyan wilderness in Egypt, I suffered the mag- 
nificence of nature at sunset to exert its influ- 
ence upon my spirit. Camille Flammarion,* 
Professor of Astronomy in Paris, says in his 
book concerning the boundlessness of space: 
"Let us imagine ourselves carried with the 
swiftness of the ray of light, which is 77,000 
leagues (in round numbers about 40,000 geo- 
graphical miles) in a second away from the 
earth toward a point in the heavens. A second 
passes — 77,000 leagues are left behind, another 
— 154,000 ! Let us hasten on. Ten seconds, a 
minute, ten minutes — 50 million leagues lie be- 
hind us. We go on an hour, a day, a week, 
without pausing in our flight, whole months, a 
year — the space which we have traversed is al- 
ready so great that, if we wish to express it in 
kilometers, the number is so incomprehensible 

*Camille Flammarion : Les merveilles celestes (Ce- 
lestial Wonders), Paris, 1865. 



132 An Occultist's Travels. 

that it conveys nothing to our power of percep- 
tion — there are trillions, millions upon millions. 
.Where are we ? 

"We have left behind long ago the last of the 
stars visible from the earth ; we have long been 
in other, unknown, unexplored spheres. No 
number can fix the space behind; thousands of 
millions upon thousands of millions are nothing 
in comparison to this measureless expanse, — 
our ability of comprehension is wearied. But 
what is still more incomprehensible is — we have 
not advanced even one step in space. " 

At the thought of these beautiful words of 
Flammarion, and the infinitv which surrounds 
us, I fully realized the pettiness of human 
prejudices and the utter desolation of a view of 
the world which will admit nothing but ma- 
terialism, while the scientific representatives 
of metapsychics prove that their opponents foist 
upon them their own unpleasant opinions by 
passing over the most convincing proofs in 
silence, and disputing facts which no one main- 
tains, in order at last, forced to recognize abso- 
lutely irrefutable phenomena, to attribute them 
to a force absolutely incapable of producing 
them. 






An Occultist's Travels. 133 

An interesting incident of the seance of Oc- 
tober 24, 1905, was that we suddenly heard a 
great number of voices behind the curtain. 
Betsy said that once Egyptian women, and an- 
other time Indians, had come in crowds to show 
this phenomenon. On October 29 and Novem- 
ber 2 I sent for the photographer, Edward 
Wyllie, San Francisco, 875 Sutter Street, in 
order to see what the photographic plate would 
receive. The pictures were taken by flashlight, 
and were very remarkable. Besides the ma- 
terialized figures, the development showed a 
number of spirits who could not be previously 
seen with the eyes. In one picture I instantly 
recognized an uncle of mine, whom I had con- 
verted to Spiritualism by another medium about 
twelve years before. He now came from grati- 
tude, as Betsy told me. I have already sent 
these pictures to de Ilochas, since at present 
France appears to me to stand at the head of the 
Spiritualistic movement; at least, in conse- 
quence of its progress there, men of greater 
scientific prominence are now studying these 
phenomena. 

In reply to my question why more of the be- 
ings whom I knew, especially relatives and those 



134 An Occultist's Travels. ? 

with whom I believed I stood in intellectual re- 
lations, because I was following almost the same 
path as they, were not seen in these pictures, I 
received the reply that the beings nearly con- 
nected with me were too highly developed, so 
that they no longer worked in the material 
sphere, but rather in the sphere of inspiration, 
and it would be easier for them to control trance 
or speech mediums. 

As soon as hunger, sensual love, and prop- 
erty* lose their importance in the intelligible 
world — that is, to our real being — because they 
possess them only for the cell-body (of the pres- 
ent life), the foundation and cause of our so- 
cial distinctions will also disappear; the ideas 
of wealth and aristocracy, nay, even of age and 
youth, will have no meaning, for they are phan- 
toms. Distinctions will probably exist, but of a 
different kind, because the principle of classifi- 
cation is different. That is (regarded from the 
standpoint of our real being) , a large portion of 



*As is well known, Proudhon said that private prop- 
erty was robbery, and St. Benedict, in his famous rule 
of the Order (Chapters 33 and 55, Salmansweiler, 1791, 
pages 112 and 168), calls it the most malicious crime. 
(Baron von Hellenbach's Social Politics, Sphinx, Gera, 
Reuss, 1890, p, 260.) 



r An Occultist's Travels. 135 

everything which men consider the greatest 
blessings of life, will disappear. S 

I also again had occasion to admire the medi- 
cal knowledge of Star Eagle. At the first 
seance he told me that my "magnetism" was 
red instead of blue, and I was suffering from 
urocystitis. True, he did not use this medical 
professional term, but his description of my 
sharp pains was perfect. Here help must be 
obtained at once, and he would bring me the 
next day a liquid, which I must take imme- 
diately. The following day he really did come, 
and I distinctly heard, — since for this experi- 
ment almost total darkness must reign, — drops 
fall into a phial ; then he laid the bottle on my 
head and gave it to me. On the second day 
after, the violet, stinging pains had disap- 
peared! He told me that this liquid was an 
extract from about three hundred herbs, prin- 
cipally East Indian ones, and that a large num- 
ber of spirits had had to help him to prepare 
the remedy and give it to me in a material form. 

Occult literature often describes such cases, 
but the majority of physicians will not hear of 
anything of the kind. There must be no com- 
petition, though the doctors often err in diag- 



136 An Occultist's Travels. 

noses, as well as in therapeutics. Somnambul- 
ism, mediumism, swindling! But these gen- 
tlemen have not even dreamed of all these things 
as they really are! In America, there is far 
more toleration; almost the larger number of 
educated people know something of it; there 
need be no constraint in mentioning the sub- 
ject in the best society, and even in the daily 
papers and magazines one often reads descrip- 
tions from the province of metaphysics, so that 
supporters and opponents have an opportunity 
to speak. 

In the seance previously mentioned, where 
Jemima Clark, as a muslin ball, rolled up my 
left leg to my heart, and finally materialized 
outside of the cabinet before our eyes, a French- 
man, M. Priet, whose wife, an ardent follower 
of Mr. Miller, was also present, came as a ma- 
terialized phantom, and I heard his voice. He 
had died about ten weeks before, while travel- 
ing in France. I knew him in life, and he now, 
as a spirit, regretted that he had not, while on 
earth, become better acquainted with Spiritual- 
ism, like his wife. I have quite frequently 
heard such regret for similar neglect expressed 
by spiritual beings. Their companions in life 



An Occultist's Travels. 137 

had usually suffered enough from the derision 
of such people, and regret in such cases comes 
too late ! 

The historically authentic material upon 
spiritualistic phenomena is on the whole so 
great, that already a thoroughly superficial 
judge of it does not know whether to wonder 
most over the ignorance or the thoughtlessness 
of such antagonists. 

Mr. Stead, the editor in chief of the "Pall 
Mall Gazette" and the "Review of Reviews/' 
well known as the champion of the friends of 
peace and by his free disclosures of the sins of 
the so-called fashionable world, points out that, 
during the last quarter of a century, more than 
three thousand spiritualistic works have ap- 
peared — among them forty-six scientific peri- 
odicals in all languages — and that the number 
of Spiritualists of European races has already 
exceeded fifty millions ! And, in addition, there 
are the fifty thousand Theosophists who follow 
Mme. Blavatsky!* 

That these things do not undergo an objective 

*Von Werth: Moderne Magie (Modern Magic) in 
"Sphinx," 1895, p. 156, Brunswick, C. A. Schwetschke 
& Son. 

\ I 



138 



An Occultist's Travels, 



critical examination from the majority of those 
who wish to represent exact science, is evidently 
due to the fact that our "men of science' ' are 
still for the most part involved in prejudices, 
for there are not only stupid and superstitious 
prejudices, but, as is well known, also scientific 
prejudices. In the presence of this vast amount 
of historical material, the crushing testimony of 
the living generation, and the absurdity of the 
materialistic assumption of a "thinking al- 
bumen/' the opponents of Spiritualism to-day 
might rather be called men of scientific de- 
lusions. 

In Mr. Miller's seances, the control, Betsy, 
always came at the close of the sitting and said 
a few farewell words. During the whole seance, 
she said she was obliged to help the spirits who 
wished to materialize, since, especially for new- 
comers, this was difficult to accomplish, and 
still more difficult to appear in the same feat- 
ures they had had on earth, which is conceiv- 
able, and every one can try on himself. For if 
one has not seen himself in the glass for some 
time, it might be difficult for most people to re- 
member accurately the lines of their faces ; then 



An Occultist's Travels. 139 

how is it to be done as a spirit, when the per- 
sonality has disappeared ? 

Very interesting things have often happened 
to me in connection with this matter. A gen- 
tleman whom I knew in life, and whom I could 
recognize very well as a spirit, came without the 
pointed beard which he formerly wore. At my 
inquiry, he replied that, on account of my ques- 
tion, he now remembered it, but, being engaged 
in developing his body, he had been obliged to 
tax his memory very severely, in order to recall 
every detail of his former earthly form. 

Betsy, whose hand I once tried to clasp in 
farewell, told me laughing that she had no arms 
that day; she had only materialized her head 
and breast; there was no power left for more, 
because too many spirits had materialized in 
this seance. If we read the views of the an- 
tagonists, we marvel that such people should 
give any opinion at all. Scarcely one of them 
has ever seen a genuine medium, or conducted 
any experiments, and therefore such persons are 
not qualified to argue. Such attacks are now 
only laughable, and the more laughable the 
higher the Olympian summits from which they 
emanate ! 



140 An Occultist's Travels. 

We still hear most frequently the words, 
"Transcendental intercourse is contrary to the 
laws of nature." Yet, as Professor Virchow 
says, "What we call the law of nature is muta- 
ble, because its discovery is human work and its 
recognition results only from the best knowl- 
edge. But later experiences are fully qualified 
to overthrow entirely existing laws, and pro- 
duce those great changes in the natural sciences 
in which modern times are so extremely rich." 



An Occultist's Travels. 141 



VII. 

On April 18th the frightful catastrophe at 
San Francisco occurred. I also felt a short 
shock at Los Angeles on the 19th, just as I was 
cutting a palm-tree in the garden; in the early 
morning, at five o'clock, black clouds with 
ashes had been seen to draw over Los Angeles, 
a thing which seldom occurs in the almost con- 
stantly cloudless sky. There are also earth- 
heavings at times in Southern California (the 
so-called cold earthquakes, produced by the dry- 
ing and contraction of the interior of the earth, 
and not of volcanic origin), but people there are 
accustomed to them, and the houses are almost 
all built of wood, so that they yield to the shocks 
and are seldom damaged. The newspapers in 
the Eastern States published many stupid er- 
rors, which I afterwards found copied into the 
German papers, such as that Santa Catalina 
Island, in the Pacific Ocean, had disappeared, 
and that the port of Los Angeles had been over- 



142 An Occultist's Travels. 

whelmed by a tidal wave, like Galveston on the 
Gulf of Mexico. Los Angeles is about eighteen 
miles from the sea. 

On May 16th I took my passage on a steamer 
of the Pacific Coast Steamship Co., in order to 
go from Los Angeles to San Francisco. A 
railway accident in the previous November, at 
Santa Margarita station, between Santa Bar- 
bara and San Francisco, in which two persons 
were killed and eleven wounded — I myself got 
off with a fright— had given me a distaste for 
the journey by rail. On May 17th, at four in 
the afternoon, we reached the Bay of San Fran- 
cisco. The Cliff House, which is seen soon 
after passing the Golden Gate, is still standing, 
and the seals still sun themselves on the cliffs 
in front, while the azure heavens are mirrored 
just as ever in the lightly curling waves of this 
noble bay. Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, etc., 
are seen as before, lying like pearls in the sun- 
shine on the slopes of the ridges, and at last 
our steamer rounds the last promontory and 
San Francisco is in sight — or at least the place 
where it once stood! 

It is a frightful sight from a distance— a 
heap of ruins, which is still partly smoking, 



An Occultist's Travels, 143 

four weeks after the catastrophe. Even the 
pier, to which our steamer makes fast, is half 
burnt away, and the "Spokane," in which I 
went to Alaska in 1905, lies at the pier, con- 
verted into a hotel, for not one is left in San 
Francisco. 

Bulwer relates how Glaucus, lone, and 
Nydia wandered about in the ruins of Pom- 
peii ; many thus wander about in San Francisco, 
seeking friends and acquaintances, mainly in 
vain, for nearly three-quarters of the city is a 
heap of ashes, and about 250,000 people have 
had to leave it already. How many have met 
their deaths will probably never be known. 
From 500 to 2000 persons are believed to have 
been burnt to death, or buried under the ruins. 
Eye-witnesses of this terrible event told me that 
no pen could describe the horrors of the scene, 
when the inhabitants were aroused from sleep 
at 5 :15 on the morning of the 18 th of April by 
the first shock, and their houses began to tumble 
about their ears. Twenty thousand buildings 
were destroyed, including the great stores and 
office buildings in the business quarter of the 
city. The next result was that conflagrations 
broke out everywhere, against which the fire 



144 An Occultist's Travels, 

brigade was powerless, because the water-pipes 
had been broken by the powerful earthquake 
shock. 

Among the fine buildings thus destroyed I 
may mention the City Hall, which had cost 
about seven million dollars, the Palace Hotel, 
the Call Building, the Chronicle Building, the 
Examiner Building, the Post Office, the Ho- 
bart Building, the Grand Opera House, the 
Lick House, the Nevada Bank Block, the St. 
Prancis Hotel, the Mark Hopkins Museum with 
all its art treasures, etc. The interesting China- 
town has disappeared. One might walk for 
hours among heaps of ruins, and see many 
safes, which offered no resistance to the fire, 
but were burnt out. The flames reached- a 
height of 200 feet, and made night like day. 

The help afforded by the United States filled 
me with admiration and respect. Railway 
trains poured in uninterruptedly from all quar- 
ters to Oakland with provisions, for there were 
about 400,000 people to be taken care of 
gratuitously, and this was done! I myself 
stood in the so-called bread-line, where thou- 
sands took their places every day to receive 
meat, potatoes, milk and crackers free of cost, 



An Occultist's Travels. 145 

for nobody had any money, the banks dared not 
open their vaults for four weeks, in order to 
allow them to cool, and there were no longer 
any stores in existence where people could buy 
anything. 

San Francisco will be rebuilt, and this may 
take five or ten years. Care will be taken to 
provide a better water-supply, and the world 
so easily forgets. I heard people say that this 
frightful catastrophe was a punishment sent by 
God for San Francisco's immorality. Cer- 
tainly there was a considerable amount of loose 
life in San Francisco, as in all seaport towns. 
Almost the whole trade between Japan, China, 
the Sunda Islands, Australia, etc., and the 
United States passes through San Francisco; a 
portion also through Seattle and Vancouver, 
and where so many nationalities come together, 
morals are not often very strict. 

Davis says, "God cannot go outside of the 
laws He has imposed/' but the finite can never 
come to understand the Infinite! In my ac- 
count of my travels I have spoken of the un- 
freedom of humanity, and in connection with 
what I have said as to the need for critical con- 
sideration of the comparative value of spirit 



146 An Occultist's Travels. 

communications, I wish to mention the explana- 
tion of a similar catastrophe which was given 
by an excarnate being. I had several conversa- 
tions with this spirit, and his explanations were 
far from being commonplace. I think it was in 
1894, when an ocean steamship went down with 
all on board; I asked this spirit why God had 
not saved even one of them. The answer was, 
that it was the destiny of the ship and all the 
people on board to meet their end on that day, 
and by water. All these passengers had been so 
guided that they came together on that ship, 
whose foundering was destined from the day on 
which it was launched, and in this way they 
were summoned, as du Prel says, to suffer the 
fate they had themselves chosen. But I do not 
care to concern myself with this hypothesis. 

As regards Mr. Miller, his place of business 
and dwelling-house are both burnt to the 
ground. What once was Bush Street is now a 
waste and a heap of ruins. An employe of his, 
Charley Kleebauer, whom I found, told me that 
Miller had received a letter from his father say- 
ing that his mother was very sick, and that he 
must come to Nancy (France) at once if he 
wished to see her again. Miller thinks a great 



An Occultist's Travels. 147 

deal of his mother, and started for Nancy on 
the 12th of April. I wrote to him to seek out 
Colonel de Rochas, but I am unable to judge 
"whether, after receiving the news of his loss in 
San Francisco, and the probable effect on his 
nerves, he is in a condition to give sittings. 

It was my original intention to visit the 
Sandwich Islands and Japan in May, 1906, but 
was forced by unforeseen obstacles to postpone 
this plan. I therefore was able to pay a visit 
to the Eastern States, which I did not yet know, 
for on my arrival at New York, in 1902, I had 
left for the West three days afterwards. 

As I wished to remain in Southern Cali- 
fornia until the first of August, on July 20th 
I visited Mount Wilson in the Sierra Madre 
Mountains, where the well-known Carnegie Ob- 
servatory is situated. From the place called 
Sierra Madre a mule has to be taken, and the 
summit of Mount Wilson, which is 6000 feet 
high, is reached in about five hours. The trail 
is rather dangerous, for it is mostly only wide 
enough for a mule, and in places leads along the 
edge of precipices a thousand feet deep. It was 
night when I got to the top, and I could not see 



148 An Occultist's Travels. 

my hand before my eyes, but the mule knew the 
way, and I simply let him go. 

Very wonderful is the view at night from the 
top of Mount Wilson over Los Angeles, which 
lies at a distance of about fifteen miles. From 
this height one sees in the distance, like a Fata 
Morgana, a sea of electric flames, enclosed by a 
sky as black as night. In January, 1902, as I 
rode back along the Nile towards Assouan from 
the Temple of Isis, on the Island of Philse, 
shaded with sycamores and palms, along the 
barrage at Assouan, which is one of those won- 
ders which have an overpowering effect, I had 
a similar view in full sunlight. Like a phantas- 
magoria I saw in the distance, in the midst of 
the sands of the Libyan Desert, the ruins of a 
place which, under the reflection of the sun- 
light and the glowing waste of sand, looked like 
a ghostly city. Yet Assouan is now full of Eu- 
ropeans and Americans, and on the spot where 
Herodotus and Strabo once stood in wonder be- 
fore the ancient nilometer, which is still in ex- 
istence, may now be seen the "globe-trotters" 
of the whole world. 

On the first of August, just the date on which 
I came to Southern California four vears be- 



An Occultist's Travels. 149 

fore, I journeyed northward, and it is a remark- 
able fact that every fourth year I experienced 
important changes. So on this occasion, I quit- 
ted California in order to reside further east. 
I can count back for the last twenty years how 
every four years important events have entered 
into my life, so that Baron Hellenbach's Magic 
of Numbers (Vienna, 1882) seems to be no 
-empty fancy. 

On December 14th I came back to Southern 
California, in order to arrange various affairs 
before my final removal to the East, and can 
indeed say that my long stay in the Eastern 
States had brought me much that was new. I 
had special opportunities for meeting Theoso- 
phists of all shades of thought, and found that 
they had many beautiful ideas. Ethics, philoso- 
phy, and practice for self-development, are the 
essential points. The basis of the whole doc- 
trine is rebirth, and I must agree with Prof. 
Seiling when he says, "The solving of the riddle 
of humanity will be brought much nearer 
through the doctrine of reincarnation, together 
with that of Karma." I must also admit that 
du Prel's dictum, that the life is self-ordained 
by the transcendental self, does not altogether 



150 An Occultist's Travels. 

hold good ; for there are lives whose course can 
scarcely be regarded as voluntarily self-or- 
dained, but are rather to be understood as the 
outworking of an unalterable law. 

But here a question comes forward, as to 
which I can obtain no enlightenment. Accord- 
ing to my experience, Astrology rests on a true 
basis, but the moment of birth is not subject 
to the mother's control. How does this influ- 
ence of the stars on human fate agree with the 
law of Karma ? According to the law of Karma 
we must expiate the debt of guilt which we 
have contracted in a previous life, or in the 
present one, and yet we are dependent on the 
influence of the stars, which cross our path 
favourably or unfavourably. The answer given 
to me by a Theosophist, that we can so develop 
ourselves that we can become masters of the 
stellar influences, appears to me very prob- 
lematical. Moreover, in this matter, I seemed 
to be confronted by a hideous Janus-head. One 
of those gentlemen, who seems to be tolerably 
well read, and has established classes, in which 
he asserts that through vibrations clairvoyance 
and clairaudience can be developed, told me in 
all seriousness that when the new "world-cycle" 









An Occultist's Travels. 151 

began, his powers would be so much developed 
that he could dematerialize the hidden wealth 
of the Catholic Church, and re-materialize it 
again in order to use it for Theosophical pur- 
poses and for the building of a Theosophical 
temple on the Sierra Nevada in Southern Cali- 
fornia! Among a lot of other preposterous 
stuff he told me (in fact, he relates to all who 
consult him the most wonderful stories of his 
former incarnations) that I had been a ruler in 
Atlantis, and had, in foreknowledge of the de- 
struction of that continent and of the knowledge 
of that period, which far surpassed our present 
science, hidden papers, containing memoranda 
about the lost Atlantis, in a cave in the moun- 
tains of Washington State, near the Pacific 
Ocean, that they had withstood the disintegrat- 
ing effects of thousands of years, and that I 
should shortly rediscover them and easily de- 
cipher them, by "perception !" Also in a for- 
mer incarnation I was said to be the father of 
Christ, and so forth. Such are the distorted 
forms of spiritual teaching even among Amer- 
ican Theosophists. 

Indeed the fabled Atlantis plays a great part 
in Theosophical circles ; there is a whole litera- 



152 ■ An Occultist's Travels. 

ture in connection with it, said to have been: 
given through writing mediumship. Yet there 
are many fine and elevated ideas on this sub- 
ject. I myself, in a sitting with Miller in 1905, 
saw a brilliantly shining materialised spirit, 
eight feet high, who claimed that he was a for- 
mer inhabitant of Atlantis. 

After this digression I will now relate as 
briefly as possible the following experiences. 
The distance from the Pacific to the Atlantic 
Ocean is about 3300 miles, and it takes five 
days and five nights to reach New York from 
Southern California. A long journey, and not 
without danger, for the American railroads are 
not so safe as the European ones ; even the New 
York Staats-Zeitung of Sept. 26th, 1906, gave, 
under the headline, "Frightful Record," a list 
of railroad accidents, according to which 26 
persons were killed and 238 injured on an aver- 
age every day on the American railroads. 

On August 2nd, 1906, I reached San Fran- 
cisco by boat, for the second time since the 
earthquake; it was not much changed in ap- 
pearance during the time. According to the 
Report of the Special Committee of the Board 



An Occultist's Travels. 1S3 

of Trustees of the Chamber of Commerce, the 
loss at San Francisco amounted to about 350 
million dollars, of which about 80 per cent, 
would be paid by the insurance companies. 

On the 4th of August, I started on my east- 
ward journey, and in Utah encountered the first 
rain. In California it does not rain from April 
to November, and therefore it is rather pleas- 
ant to meet with a shower of rain in summer. 
In Southern California, outside of the gardens, 
which have to be watered every day, and then 
exhibit quite a tropical beauty, all the vegeta- 
tion assumes a grey tint in summer. After 
passing Salt Lake, which is 45 miles wide, and 
on which the Mormons have their headquarters, 
I reached Chicago in three days. 

As I desired to go on to Buffalo by steamer, 
I had to stay three days in Chicago before the 
boat started. Though Chicago is rather a 
smoky and dirty city, one feels nearer to civili- 
zation there. The Art Institute of Chicago, 
and other temples of art, brought me back to 
the conditions of existence to which I had for- 
merly been accustomed, and the raging din in 
the Board of Trade reminded me of the Berlin 
Stock Exchange, before settlement speculations 



154 An Occultist's Travels. 

were forbidden by law. Lincoln Park, with its 
zoological garden, is very beautiful. 

On August 11th I went on board the "North- 
land," of the Northern Steamship Company, 
for the voyage along the Great Lakes, Michigan, 
Huron, and Erie, which takes two and a half 
days. The boat stops at Milwaukee, Harbor 
Springs, Mackinac Island (a summer resort for 
the people of the adjoining states), Detroit, 
and Cleveland, where Dr. Cyriax, editor of the 
Neue Spiritualistische Blatter, formerly pub- 
lished at Berlin, lived for a long time. The 
shores of these lakes are generally flat, and 
though they cannot be compared with those of 
the great European lakes and the Mediterran- 
ean, yet they are restful after the long journey 
from the Pacific. 

On arriving at Buffalo, I took a car ride of 
about half an hour to Niagara Falls, one of the 
great wonders of the world. These Palis have 
now become a fashionable summer resort for 
thousands of people; even excursionists with 
their wives and families camp there with their 
perambulators. The electric car runs by the 
so-called Great Gorge Route, along the Whirl- 
pool Rapids, where Captain "Webb lost his life 



An Occultist's Travels. 155 

in his attempt to swim them on July 24th, 1883. 
At the Horseshoe Fall, on the Canadian side, I 
went down in an elevator, dressed as a miner, 
and had the Falls right over me. It is a splen- 
did sight, to see these immense masses of water 
pouring down from three sides. 



156 An Occultist's Travels. 



VIII. 

Returning to Buffalo, I travelled to Dunkirk, 
in order to visit the Spiritualist Camp at Lily 
Dale. I stayed three days there in 1902, with- 
out seeing much that was very remarkable. This 
time I stopped there from August 15th to Sep- 
tember 6th, and have much to relate that is of 
interest. Lily Dale is in Chautauqua County, 
on Cassadaga Lake, surrounded by ancient 
woods. It has an auditorium for 1500 persons 
and a library of 1300 books, mostly presented 
by mediums, and about 182 cottages. In the 
forenoon the Psychic Classes are held, in 
which lectures are given on the "psychic 
spheres ;" there are also Physical Culture 
classes for the body, music several times daily, 
sometimes also dances in the Auditorium, so 
that there is something to satisfy everybody. 

My first visit was to Pierre Keeler, the cele- 
brated "Independent Slate-writing Medium." 
His prospectus bears many names of well- 



r An Occultist's Travels. 157 

known people who have endorsed his medium- 
ship, such as Professor Elliot Coues, Dr. Alfred 
Russel Wallace, Prof. Wm. Denton, and others. 
Mr. Keeler takes two slates, and after the sit- 
ter has wiped them himself with a wet sponge, 
he places one upon the other and asks the sitter 
to write questions for the spirits on small pieces 
of paper, fold them up so that Keeler can see 
nothing of what has been written, and then lay 
them on the edge of the slates. Then Keeler 
himself takes the pencil in his hand and writes 
— in my case correctly — the names of the spir- 
its to whom the questions have been addressed 
(I had written five, of which he could not him- 
self have thought). He explained to me that he 
is clairaudient ; his control tells him these 
names, and these spirits are now present, 
though invisible. Then he tied the two slates 
together, and gave them into my hand, so that 
he held them by two corners and I by the two 
others, in full noon sunlight, about a foot above 
the table. Then I heard marvellously rapid 
writing, and raps, whereupon Mr. Keeler 
handed me the slates with the remark that the 
sitting (which cost two dollars) was at an end. 
I went out with the slates, untied the knots in 



158 An Occultist's Travels. 

the park, and found five separate messages, writ- 
ten backwards and forwards, with the signatures 
of those to whom I had addressed the questions. 
This phenomenon is very interesting in itself, 
for fraud on Mr. Keeler's part appears to be out 
of the question ; some of the replies were in Ger- 
man, whereas Mr. Keeler, as far as I can gather 
from himself and others whom I have asked, is 
quite ignorant of that language; moreover he 
enjoys a very good reputation in the opinion of 
those likely to know. The five answers to my 
questions were in quite different handwritings; 
but they were certainly not from the persons 
whom I had addressed, and by whom they were 
signed! It is an old experience, that spirits 
give themselves false names, and I scarcely be- 
lieve that every excarnate spirit has the capacity 
to write between slates; that requires a certain 
degree of skill, which must be acquired by 
practice.* 

*Compare Dr. Robert Friese, Stimmen aus dem 
Reiche der Geister (Leipzig, 1897, Oswald Mutze) and 
Das Leben jenseits des Grabes (ib. 1893). 

Mr. Hereward Carrington, member of the Council 
of the American Society for Scientific Research, in his 
book entitled The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism 
(Small, Maynard & Co., Boston), designated Mr. 
Keeler as a trickster and explained^ in detail every 
manoeuvre indulged in by Keeler in his alleged nefari- 



An Occultist's Travels. 159 

I next visited Mrs. J. de Bartholomew, 
Trumpet and Trance Medium. The room was 
entirely darkened, so that the trumpet through 
which the spirits were said to speak could never 
be seen. The first to speak was said to be an 
Indian, who gave his name as Black Hawk, and 
reminded me that he had spoken to me at 
Miller's, which I afterwards remembered was 
the case. As there is an interesting story con- 
nected with this Indian, I will relate it, just as 
"Betsy," Mr. Miller's chief control, told it to 
me. In 1905, I changed my residence in South- 
ern California, and soon afterwards had occa- 
sion to see Mr. Miller in San Francisco. Among 
others Black Hawk came at that interview. 
Though I was not interested in his coming, I 
asked Betsy afterwards what this Indian 
wanted. Her answer was, that he was the chief 
of a band of Indians who had lived on the site 
of my former dwelling; they had followed me 
into the new house, because the purchaser of 
the former one was not to their liking. (Nor 
did living people like him much!) This In- 

ous performances. Should Mr. Keeler have a desire to 
still inspire confidence and have people believe that # he 
is an honest medium he would naturally have to subject 
himself to the most severe test conditions. 



160 An Occultist's Travels. 

dian and his band took a great interest in all my 
affairs and pursuits. He now came again 
through Mrs. Bartholomew, and was very glad 
to be able to speak to me ; he first asked me if I 
liked him, and I readily assented. Then I asked 
him how my dog Moppel was, at home. He re- 
plied that he was all right, but that I had now 
two dogs. This was correct, for five months 
before I had bought a St. Bernard dog. To my 
second question, what readers in Germany of 
my travel experiences thought of me, I received 
an answer which made me laugh heartily, 
namely, that some thought I was crazy, because 
some things that I had written about Miller's 
sittings were impossible. It is evident that 
Black Hawk has at any rate an open and can-, 
did character! After him an Atlantean spirit 
manifested, who spoke earnestly of reincarna- 
tion as a truth. It was at any rate curious that 
an entity should hold forth on reincarnation, 
just at the time when I had been giving a great 
deal of consideration to the question of its pos- 
sibility. 

The third medium I visited was Mrs. L. Eve- 
lyn Barr, also a "trumpet medium," but she 
holds her sittings in full daylight. This sitting 



'An Occultist's Travels. 161 

was in some respects the most interesting of all 
to me, for well-known names were spoken 
through the trumpet. Yet Mr. Keeler, the 
slate-writing medium above mentioned, knew 
these names, and I was told that mediums had 
what is called a "blue-book," in which are noted 
down the names of all visitors, and of the spirits 
after whom they have inquired. I will not ac- 
cuse Mrs. Barr of having been in personal com- 
munication with Mr. Keeler for this purpose, 
because I cannot prove anything; but I cannot 
deny that I was suspicious, because the spirits 
who announced themselves were the very ones 
with whom I had wished to speak through Mr. 
Keeler. 

The directors of Lily Dale are very strict 
with regard to mediums suspected of fraudulent 
practices. While I was there, Dr. K., who gave 
"demonstrations of unseen forces" in the Audi- 
torium, and did astonishing things, suddenly 
disappeared. The directors had asked him to 
leave the camp, because there was reason to 
suspect that he had made use of such a "blue- 
book." 

Miss P. M. C. Cottrill, a young lady, who is 
a medium for raps, makes an excellent impres- 



162 An Occultist's Travels. 

sion, but gives no public performances for earn- 
ing money. Wherever she stands, there are 
raps in full sunlight, even on cement, pillows, 
etc. She would be a good subject for the sci- 
entific researchers ! 

I also visited Mrs. W. Ripley, trance speaker 
and clairvoyant, who obtained excellent results 
in a circle of ten persons. Another medium, 
Mr. Charles S. Hulbert, held his trance dis- 
courses in the midst of the woods. On the sec- 
ond occasion he had the misfortune, after a very 
acceptable speech on the theory of descent, to 
be controlled by a negro girl, who gradually 
dropped into an indelicate way of speaking, so 
that the ladies who were present left, and were 
soon followed by the men. The poor man told 
me the next day that he remained entranced so 
long that it was midnight before he got home 
from the woods, and that when he awoke he 
could not understand why he was all alone, be- 
cause at the beginning of the sitting he was sur- 
rounded with people. This experience is a good 
proof of the genuineness of Mr. Hulbert's 
mediumship, for in his waking state he is in- 
capable of talk of this description. 

I afterwards became acquainted with Mrs. 



An Occultist's Travels. 163 

s 

J. Werner; she calls herself a healer, from 
Allegheny, Pa. ; she is clairvoyant and makes 
diagnoses. She is assistant to Dr. G. Leonard 
Le-Van, who also was with her at Lily Dale. 
She is rather an agreeable person, and she told 
me I ought not to eat tomatoes, because my kid- 
neys were weak. In fact, I had kidney pains at 
the time. 

An honourable place in my account of Lily 
Dale must be accorded to Mrs. Elise Stumpf, 
Inspirational Speaker and Magnetic Healer. 
A German by birth, she has in former years 
written much for the paper Liclitstrahlen of 
Chicago. She devoted herself to the interests 
of the Camp, and has the best qualities of char- 
acter. Anyone needing encouragement and 
comfort will get what they need from her. There 
are also a number of other mediums, but of less 
importance. 

I must now say something about Mrs. Cora 
L. V. Kichmond, Pastor of the Church of the 
Soul at Chicago. As an inspirational speaker 
she has the best-known name in the United 
States. A thick volume of 759 pages* has been 

*Lifework of Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond, by Harri- 
son D. Barrett, published under the auspices of the 



164 An Occultist's Travels. 

published about her by the National Spiritual- 
ists' Association of the TJ. S. A. Since she was 
eleven years old, so it is stated, she has given 
lectures upon Spiritualism under inspiration, 
and even in different languages. I heard her 
speak in the Auditorium on "Astro-psychology," 
that is, the influence of the intelligences of the 
stars upon men, when the latter are born at a 
time which renders them sensitive to such in- 
fluences. She denies the influences of the stars 
themselves, and teaches that of the inhabitants 
of the planets, such as Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, 
Venus, and the Asteroids. She is now 66 years 
old, and during all these years she has spoken 
under inspiration on all branches of knowledge. 
She speaks excellently, and is very attractive in 
appearance. Her husband takes down her 
discourses by stenography, so that they may not 
be lost. 

Mrs. Richmond speaks very quietly and im- 
pressively, but expresses herself too decidedly 
about unverifiable themes. She must pardon 
me, but with all respect for her work, which 
must often have aroused strong contestation, 

National Spiritualists' Association of the U. S.. A* 
Chicago: Hack & Anderson, 1895. 



An Occultist's Travels. 165 

one should not make assertions which are im- 
possible of proof in such a categorical tone. 
Her husband told me that she delivered her 
discourses in trance. Now from my childhood 
and through my formerly very extensive prac- 
tice all phases of trance condition and somnam- 
bulism are thoroughly known to me. Closed 
eyes, disappearance of the pupil of the eye, loss 
of sensibility, etc., are the signs of such a con- 
dition. But none of these occur with Mrs. 
Richmond. She speaks with her eyes open and 
with absolute control over her body. In my 
opinion she may speak under inspiration — that 
is quite possible — but she does not speak in 
trance. In mediums for inspiration, accord- 
ing to all experience, their own ideas easily 
become mingled with what is apparently a given 
them" from the Beyond. 

I have only heard three of her discourses, 
and I must say, without wishing to accuse Mrs. 
Richmond of plagiarism, that I have read the 
greater part of the ideas enunciated by her in 
Andrew Jackson Davis's works, seventeen years 
ago. She also spoke of a prenatal influence on 
the child; I have nothing to say against this, 
but du Prel has written on this theme much 



166 An Occultist's Travels. 

more clearly and satisfactorily without any 
trance and from a scientific point of view.* She 
also spoke about "sun-machines ;" in time peo- 
ple would learn how to catch the sun's rays and 
use them at night instead of the electric light. 
At the end, however, she mentioned that she was 
only uttering "opinions." 

At Lily Dale they also held "Forest Temple 
Meetings." On some rising ground in the woods 
there are benches and a platform, from which 
mediums give addresses or deliver "spirit 
messages." I happened to meet there one day 
perhaps ten mediums whom I knew, and who 
were standing round a man who was distribut- 
ing pop-corn, a favourite American delicacy. 
Suddenly a number of these mediums seemed 
to be possessed ; they ran about and executed a 
veritable Indian dance. These mediums were 
really in trance and appeared to be controlled 
by Indians, who had formerly been killed on 
this spot. Dr. du Prel and Professor Perty 
describe similar phenomena, f 

*Du Prel : Die Magische Psychologies Jena, 1899, p. 
233, and Das Versehen, in Die Zukunft (Berlin, Har- 
den) of Nov. 16 and 23, 1895. 

fDu Prel : Die Magie als Naturwissenschaft, Jena, 
1899, p. 147. Prof, Perty, Der jetzige Spiritismus und 



An Occultist's Travels. 167 

Lily Dale is all the more interesting, as it is 
a very prettily situated place; everything is 
well organized, and the management maintains, 
as has been remarked, a strict discipline. 
Mediums who are not in good repute are not 
admitted into this camp. I met three judges 
there, who gave their legal advice gratis when 
there was a discussion in the Auditorium about 
the financial arrangements. The camp is closed 
at the beginning of September, and some of the 
mediums go to spend the winter months at Lake 
Helen Camp, in Florida. People can, however, 
stay in Lily Dale in the winter, as Mr. W. H. 
Bach used to do when he edited the Sunflower, 
which was published there, but there was no 
electric light then, and people had to find their 
way about at night with a lantern. 

On September 6th, I went by Buffalo to Al- 
bany, on the Hudson River, and thence to New 
York by steamer. The trip on the river, taking 
about eight hours, took me past the Catskill 
Mountains and Poughkeepsie, which are fa- 
miliar to readers of A. J. Davis's Magic Staff. 
The Hudson is called the American Rhine. If 

verwandte Erscheinungen, Leipzig and Heidelberg, 1877, 
p. 252. 



168 An Occultist's Travels. 

it has no old ruined castles to show, there is very 
fine scenery on it, especially as New York is 
approached. I afterwards had great pleasure in 
taking a walk along the Hudson. 

It is not my purpose in the present narrative 
of travel to give a description of New York, yet 
I must acknowledge that no city in the world 
can compare with it for beauty and grandeur. 
I know Berlin, Paris, London, St. Petersburg, 
Rome, and other great cities fairly well, but 
there is no city that has anything to compare 
with the riches of Fifth Avenue, in which so 
many millionaires have their palaces. Even in 
Paris and London I have not seen such jewelry 
and art stores as, for instance, Tiffany's or the 
Gorham Company's in Fifth Avenue. A house 
is being built in New York which has 42 stories. 
The traffic in Broad Street, where the Stock 
Exchange is, and in Wall Street, is quite ter- 
rific; there is the incessant mad rush of the 
elevated railroad overhead and of the subway 
beneath the feet of the people in the streets. 

I must not forget to mention the quite unique 
libraries in this city. The University Library 
arouses the astonishment of the visitor from 
Europe by its architectural beauty, the richness 



An Occultist's Travels. 169 

of its contents, and the convenience of its ar- 
rangements; yet it is put in the shade by the 
public libraries. In the European cities castles 
and cathedrals are usually the most conspicuous 
architectural features ; in the United States, the 
stranger who wishes to admire the chief archi- 
tectural monuments of a place, may with confi- 
dence expect to be shown the Free Library. It 
is as though people wished to make up for the 
absence of the palaces of princes by erecting the 
most magnificent palaces possible for the 
princes of art and literature. And these sover- 
eigns of art are not intrenched behind official 
bulwarks ; they keep open doors and grant audi- 
ences to everyone. A noble palace of white 
marble is being built on Fifth Avenue for a 
Free Library, which is to contain the libraries 
founded by Lenox and Astor. Even in the 
wild West, in California, there are public 
libraries everywhere, which have been founded 
by some rich man. 

Now as to my experiences in metapsychical 
matters. I remained in New York from Sep- 
tember 8th to December 8th, and had many in- 
teresting experiences in this respect, some 
hardly worth mentioning, others very much 



110 An Occultist's Travels. 

more so. Herr Hermann Handrich, Secretary 
of the Swiss Consulate, whom I often had the 
pleasure of meeting, was most ready to give me 
information as to what New York and Brook- 
lyn had to offer in this regard. He took me 
first to Eva, niece of Mr. Eoach, building con- 
tractor, of 52 East Street. Her control, "Jack," 
gave several tests with articles placed under the 
table, a tambourine, mandolin, bell, and flat- 
iron, and with these he repeated, under the 
table, whatever anyone did above the table. 
Fraud appeared to be out of the question, be- 
cause the medium sits under good conditions 
and not for payment. I have been present at so 
many of these test-sittings that I have no longer 
any great interest in phenomena of this sort, 
although I must admit that they are perhaps 
the only ones which, under strict observation 
by competent investigators, can be of service to 
science as verifiable occult phenomena. 

On October 16, I visited for the first time the 
celebrated clairvoyant, Mrs. May Pepper, of 
Brooklyn, who is pastor of the First Spiritual- 
ist Church there. I found 38 ladies and four 
men, so closely packed together in a basement 
room that an apple could not have fallen to the 



An Occultist's Travels. 171 

ground between them. Her Tuesday and Fri- 
day sittings are so frequented that her sister, 
who sits at the entrance as cashier (50 cents 
each person) simply closes the door when there 
are no more chairs vacant, and many people are 
thus turned away. Each visitor lays a closed 
envelope, containing the questions to which an- 
swers are desired, on a small table, which is so 
heaped with them that many of them fall to 
the ground as soon as Mrs. Pepper, at the be- 
ginning of the seance, begins to feel among 
them to find the one she wants. 

She usually tears off a little piece, the size of 
a thumb-nail, puts this into her mouth and then 
tells fluently what is in the letter, gives the 
names of living and deceased persons, which are 
not written in the letter, but who are connected 
with the contents of the letter or with the 
writer. She tears the veil from the past and 
present with such striking certainty that in the 
cases of some twenty persons whose letters she 
handled in my presence, she only made one sin- 
gle mistake or misconception. As a psycho- 
metric clairvoyant she is quite astounding, that 
is an unquestionable fact. 

At my first visit my letter was not among 



172 An Occultist's Travels. 

those dealt with, but at my second visit she 
came to my questions. She told me things 
about which I had not asked, and which no one 
knew, and therefore her own explanation seems 
to be acceptable, that she is clairvoyant and 
clairaudient. When she took a letter in her 
hand, she would say, for instance, that a spirit, 
whose name was So-and-So, told her this and 
that. I received in this way advice from a 
spirit to whom I had not addressed any ques- 
tion — and moreover he was a near relative of 
mine — and she said expressly that this spirit 
wanted her to tell me this. The principle of 
the method employed by materialistic philoso- 
phers, of seeking the causes of occult phenomena 
in the animated organism of a living person un- 
til all possibility of a "natural" explanation is 
excluded, is of course quite correct in itself; 
but Mrs. Pepper told me, as I have said, things 
which I had not asked at all, and did not tell 
me other things, which I had asked. Accord- 
ing to my experience this is to be explained in 
this way, that the spirits to whom I had ad- 
dressed questions were not able to get into con- 
nection with Mrs. Pepper 5 but on the other 



An Occultist's Travels. 173 

hand a spirit was able to do this to whom I had 
not put any question. 

There were two ladies who would not admit 
that their letters contained what Mrs. Pepper 
asserted that they did; Mrs. Pepper had these 
letters opened and read by other persons, and 
it was plain that everything that she had as- 
serted was correct. Mrs. Pepper revenged her- 
self by revealing, before all present, events in 
the past life of one of the incredulous, or rather, 
dishonorable ladies, and they were things that? 
were not suited to publicity; but Mrs. Pepper 
is extremely sensitive, and does not easily par- 
don distrust. As I have said, Mrs. Pepper is a 
most astonishing psychometrist. If she is right 
in saying that the spirits surrounding her ques- 
tioners tell her everything that she utters, it 
would appear that these unseen spirits who are 
present know the past and present very well, 
while the future — with certain exceptions — is 
closed to them, or that, as I often heard it said, 
they dare not reveal it. 

Baron Hellenbach says very justly on this 
point: "The supersensible world must not al- 
ways give full proof of its existence, if the pur- 
pose of our being is to be fulfilled. So long as 



174 An Occultist's Travels. 

the world we know has existed in history, the 
presumed other world has always attracted in- 
dividuals and groups of persons to it; it has 
never failed of indications that our actions are 
not to be judged from the crude animal stand- 
point; nevertheless, it has always abstained 
from saving us the trouble of meditation, and 
from putting an end to our doubts. It has never 
desired to show us all the illusory nature of our 
existence. For the whole of human existence 
would be but a superfluous, agonizing game, if 
men did not set themselves to solve the prob- 
lems of earth life. With the consciousness of 
our cosmical existence we should no longer be 
men, because all trials would seem illusory and 
would lose all their value. The supersensible 
world can, may, and will unbosom itself — as 
far as it has the power — according to all rea- 
sonable grounds for belief, only to him, who 
through his own fulness of power has raised 
himself above the deception of appearances, and 
who, either through the penetration of his 
judgment or by the lofty impulse of his soul, 
feels the need of the Transcendental. " 

I also saw other mediums, but I refrain from 
describing their capabilities, for they were not 
sufficiently free from suspicion. 



An Occultist's Travels. 175 



IX. 



As chance would have it, I was still in New 
York when Mr. Miller returned from Europe. 
He made a great sensation in France and Ger- 
many. After having recovered from the shock 
to his nerves caused by the news of the destruc- 
tion by earthquake of his property and business 
in San Francisco, he went to Paris, where he 
gave the series of seances which caused great 
public excitement in France, and attracted the 
attention of persons in Europe interested in 
metapsy chics. Scientific journals, magazines, 
and daily newspapers discussed his seances in 
their columns: UEcho du Merveilleux, La 
Tribune Psychique, la Revue du Spiritualisme 
Moderne, U Initiation, in Paris, and Light in 
London, were especially eulogistic in their ex- 
pressions. Dr. Encausse ("Papus") in U In- 
itiation for October, 1906, wrote: "All other 
mediums that I have seen are as little children 
compared to Miller." Delanne, Gaston Mery, 



176 An Occultist's Travels. 

and other well-known men and leaders in the 
occult movement in France, have expressed 
themselves in like manner. 

Miller also went to Munich, Germany, and 
convinced the scientists in that country of his 
wonderful powers. Articles in Die Uebersinn- 
liche Welt, Berlin, by Dr. Walter Bormann, 
and in Psychische Studien, Leipzig, October, 
1906, by Colonel Peters, sounded the enthusias- 
tic praises of Miller. 

I have, however, to regret that Mr. Miller 
failed to become personally acquainted with 
Colonel de Bochas. Had the two met in 
seances in the sense in which de Bochas wrote 
to me, then the scientific world would have 
heard of it. As it is, the world of Spiritualism 
has been informed that my observations relat- 
ing to Mr. Miller, as published in Germany, 
France, and America, were correct; but the 
world of science, which does not concern itself 
with Spiritualism, did not hear of these evi- 
dences. 

In conjunction with Colonel de Bochas, I 
would have done everything to inform the rep- 
resentatives of psychology and physiology at 
the great universities of Europe concerning 



An Occultist's Travels. 177 

these remarkable phenomena, expecting the co- 
operation in our report of the several European 
experts who were to have been present with 
Colonel de Rochas. It will be an everlasting 
regret to me that this meeting of experts failed 
to take place. 

I know by experience that mediums are very 
liable to be affected by passing moods, and that 
it is therefore very difficult to depend upon 
them. Anything that occurs to them serves to 
change their ideas, and one must be exceed- 
ingly careful to keep them in a good humour. 

On November 2, 1906, Mr. Miller and Mr. 
Kleebauer, who had followed him to Europe, 
arrived in New York on board the "La Tou- 
raine," and I had four seances with him, the 
first being held on that same evening in Eighty- 
fourth Street. He told me that the Catholic 
Church had tried to make difficulties for him 
in France, which from my own experience I 
consider quite possible. The use of animal mag- 
netism is still forbidden by an encyclical of the 
Holy Roman Inquisition of July 30, 1856, ad- 
dressed to all the Bishops, which says: "Qua- 
propter Episcopi omnem impendant opern ad 
hujusmodi magnetismi ahusus reprimendos et 



178 An Occultist's Travels. 

evettendos, ut dominions grex defendatur et 
fideles sibi crediti a morum corruptione prae- 
serventur" (Therefore all Bishops shall use 
every means to suppress and prevent the use of 
such magnetism, that the Lord's flock may be 
defended and the faithful believers may be pre- 
served from corruption of morals.) See also 
my book, Der Heilmagnetismus, 3rd edition, 
Berlin, 1896, p. 93. 

As is sufficiently shown in the much-talked-of 
book by Dr. Lapponi, the recently deceased per- 
sonal physician to the Pope, the Roman Cath- 
olic Church condemns Spiritualism without res- 
ervation, and for good reasons : the Church does 
not wish to lose her power. As the freethinker, 
Ernst von Wolzogen, truly says in Herr Har- 
den's Zukunft, No. 52, of Sept. 29, 1906 (Ber- 
lin) : "The miraculous pictures, the proces- 
sions, the Immaculate Queen of Heaven, the 
doctrine of purgatory and the great number of 
easily accessible saints as intermediaries of 
earthly wishes before the heavenly throne, all 
these are strong pillars of the Church's power." 
In 1897, I treated the wife of an excommuni- 
cated Catholic priest, who had become a Jew- 
ess. A Jewish physician was afterwards called 



An Occultist's Travels. It9 

in, who, along with the priest, denounced me to 
the authorities as having made somnambulistic 
diagnoses, etc. But the authorities refused to 
act in the matter. About this time Frau Anna 
Eothe came to my house, and I asked her con- 
trol how the matter would turn out. The an- 
swer was, that a great number of Catholic 
"clerical spirits" were influencing the excom- 
municated priest to persecute me, in collusion 
with the doctor, because they did not wish that 
my efforts for the propagandism of animal 
magnetism and Spiritualism should be success- 
ful. The ideas of the Catholic Church had re- 
mained with these clericals even after death; 
but stronger powers would help me in this mat- 
ter ; and so it was ! The exposure of the ex- 
priest and his medical accomplice was not at 
all bad, when they were turned back from the 
public law office, after they and those behind 
them had represented me in the press as already 
done for. There are, however, exceptions 
among the Catholic clergy, for I know some 
very agreeable, honourable, and high-minded 
ones among them; but even they have to be 
silent and obev. Moreover, in the States the 
Spiritualist Churches, or assemblies, whose an- 



180 An Occultist's Travels. 

nouncements appear under the heading of 
churches, have for some time competed tolerably 
successfully with the Church. If we take up a 
Sunday paper, which contains the announce- 
ments of the churches, we can read the an- 
nouncements of the Baptist, Christian, Chris- 
tian Science, Congregational, Episcopal, Inde- 
pendent, Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist Episco- 
pal, New Jerusalem, Presbyterian, Reformed 
Episcopal, Union, Unitarian, and Universalist 
Churches, and along with these a great number 
of Spiritualist meetings, in which for the most 
part religious discourses are given on ethics and 
philosophy in the theosophical sense as sketched 
above. Mrs. Pepper's "Aurora Grata Cathe- 
dral" in Brooklyn is crowded every Sunday, 
and at the close she always answers some of the 
letters which are presented in hundreds by the 
audience. 

I do not think it necessary to give a detailed 
description of the four sittings with Miller in 
New York, for they resulted in nothing new, in 
addition to what I have already described, and 
what had already been fully described in the 
French journals, down to the smallest particu- 
lar. I had previously purchased a curtain my- 



An Occultist's Travels. 181 

self, and arranged it in a house which was quite 
strange to Mr. Miller; the sitters were all 
strangers to him, and yet the manifestations 
were still the same as ever. "Betsy" was ex- 
ceedingly pleased to be able to talk with me 
again, and in English. It had been so hard for 
her to make herself understood in Europe, be- 
cause she could only speak English. "Star 
Eagle" and "Dr. Benton" came afterwards, 
and many other spirits. White balls of muslin- 
like shining spiders' webs developed, even out- 
side the cabinet, sank down from above, and 
quickly formed themselves into phantoms, 
among them those of old friends and ac- 
quaintances, one of whom embraced and kissed 
me, out of joy at seeing me again. The third 
sitting took place on Thirty-fourth Street, be- 
cause the room in Eighty-fourth Street was 
too smoky, and I brought Herr Hermann Hand- 
rich, who placed an excellent article about it at 
the disposal of Dr. Bormann for Die Uebersinn- 
liche Welt, Berlin. At this sitting a phantom 
materialised who called itself Katherine Boss- 
hard, and spoke in Swiss dialect; she said that 
she came on Herr Handrich's account, whose 
family she knew well. He could not remem- 



182 An Occultist's Travels. 

ber the name on that evening, but on the next 
day (Nov. 16th) I received a card from him 
in which he said : "Now I know who Katherine 
Bosshard was. Not a servant (he thought at 
first that it was perhaps some help in his pa- 
rents' house in Switzerland), but the daughter 
of a Dr. Bosshard, who had charge of my dear 
little sister while our mother was on her death- 
bed." Also the already mentioned Frederika 
Hauffe, from Munich, came, and I had a long 
talk with her about everything that had hap- 
pened in Europe; she spoke such lovely Ger- 
man that I was unwilling to see her go. Then 
Miller showed himself at the same time with 
the three Fox sisters, etc. 

Professor Maier mentions in Psychische 
Studien, Leipzig, for December, 1906, page 
755, according to the report in UEcho du Mer- 
veilleux, that Betsy smelt strongly of tobacco, 
like Mr. Miller. I have often observed this 
with the phantoms which materialised with 
Miller. Even when I saw the phantom and 
Mr. Miller at the same time, it smelt strongly 
of tobacco, coffee, brandy, etc., according to 
what Mr. Miller had previously been taking. 
This is a singular phenomenon, but well known 



An Occultist's Travels. 183 

to experienced Spiritualists. It seems as 
though these vaporous beings took almost every- 
thing from their medium, of course including a 
great part of his ideas, so that, as I have al- 
ready remarked, one cannot expect anything 
unadulteratedly original from them. The 
spirit comes for a moment from his own natural 
element into our earthly sphere, and du Prel 
is right when he says: "How the beings of 
the Beyond act in their own element, without 
being hindered by the corporeality either of 
themselves or of things around them, is a matter 
beyond our experience and comprehension." 

On November 18th, 1906, Miller left again 
for San Francisco, while I remained in New 
York until December 8th. It had become very 
cold, so that I again became acquainted with 
snow and ice, and there was skating on the 
Hudson as the railroad took me along it to Al- 
bany. On the 9 th I reached Chicago, and pre- 
pared my mind for the journey of three days 
and nights across the wastes of the central por- 
tion of North America. On the second day 
we crossed the now snow-clad Rocky Moun- 
tains, and on the third the Sierra Nevada, on 
which also the snow lay knee-deep. At last we 



184 An Occultist's Travels. 

were back in San Francisco, which I had quit- 
ted on August 4th, and was glad to see that in 
the meantime something had been done towards 
rebuilding the ruined city. 

Building is going on everywhere, and trade 
is already very good. Mr. Miller has reopened 
his art and antiquities store on Post Street. 
But I was in search of warmer surroundings, 
and shortly before Christmas I reached South- 
ern California once more, and took up my quar- 
ters in Hollywood, near the Mexican border, 
where the orange and citron trees ripen their 
fruit at that season. It is really beautiful 
there in winter, but in summer the everlasting 
sunshine makes one dull and takes away one's 
energy. 

When I come to think again over the experi- 
ences of the last journey, I must admit that I 
have been drawn somewhat further in the direc- 
tion of Theosophy. I am, however, still of the 
opinion that experimental Spiritualism forms 
the true basis for the certainty of a Future life. 
Crookes and Wallace, Zollner, Fechner, Weber 
and Scheibner, Lombroso, Tamburini, Ascensi 
and many others would scarcely have come, but 
for experiment, to the conviction that Nature 



An Occultist's Travels. 185 

may be very much richer in facts than savants 
were aware, and have therefore freely admitted 
at least the facts of occultism. It must not in- 
deed be assumed that they arrived at this recog- 
nition by themselves, that is, through their own 
carefully made observations. But once the ex- 
perimental basis is established, the next step is 
to the higher knowledge of Theosophy, whose 
teachings must still remain within rational lim- 
its, and, where proofs are wanting, ought not to 
be clothed in the form of apodictic dogmas. 
Self-practice for one's own development ap- 
pears to me to be the correct way. 

As Professor Dr. Nagel pointed out in 
Psychische Studien (July, 1905, p. 428), even 
Professor Crookes, whose writings I have not 
at hand for reference here in the Wild West, 
tried to explain his experiences with Florence 
Cook on the animistic theory. According to 
this, it is possible for the subconsciousness^ un- 
der certain peculiar circumstances, to project 
externally a form which can move about, and 
to clothe it with particles of matter, so that it 
appears for the moment in corporeal form. In 
the same way it explains all those apparently 
incomprehensible phenomena by the super- 



186 An Occultist's Travels. 

normal psychic powers of the medium. Gaston 
Mery also, in UEcho du Merveilleux, proposes 
the explanation that the phantoms are formed 
by the will and fancy of the medium from the 
externalised odic layers. 

With Miller I frequently saw — especially 
before he went into the cabinet — almost trans- 
parent phantoms of this kind, which also ap- 
pear like substance externalised from the 
medium. But how is it, I ask myself, when I 
have seen the medium himself together with 
three separate phantoms, which had bodies as 
firm as his own, and two of them spoke English 
and one German with persons sitting in the cir- 
cle, and whom the phantoms themselves had 
called to them while standing in front of the 
cabinet. And what are we to say when, on one 
of the three different photographs which I took 
with Miller, one of which was published, along 
with an article by Colonel de Eochas, in the 
journal, "Je Sais Tout" of Paris, April 15, 
1906, a phantom showed itself fully material- 
ised, and having absolutely the appearance of 
my uncle, Theodor Neuberth, whom I had been 
very fond of when he was on earth, but of whom 
I had not thought for years, so that he was not 



An Occultist's Travels. 187 

in my mind, and I could not have telepathically 
influenced Mr. Miller ? Moreover, I have heard 
these phantoms which appeared with Miller 
speak in the most diverse languages and dia- 
lects, whereas Miller, whom I have known for 
nearly four years, only speaks French and Eng- 
lish. 

Another question is, how far the knowledge 
and capacities of these momentarily formed 
human beings extends, and here I must confess 
that they do not go very far. For these beings, 
apparently transported back into the material 
world, as du Prel has justly said, do not show 
their real nature as regards mental qualities. 

As regards what are called "revelations," I 
have received much better and deeper ones 
through other trance and speaking mediums. 
But these phenomena of transitory materialisa- 
tion, as exhibited by Miller, have by far the 
higher value for the scientific researcher, and 
allow of more thorough investigation. 

As I have already mentioned, I had many 
opportunities to meet Theosophists, and cannot 
deny that they present many elevated ideas; 
but it is difficult for a Christian, like myself, to 
reconcile myself to the difference between Chris- 



/ 



188 An Occultist's Travels. 

tianity and Buddhism. Ernst Diestel has set 
forth this difference very clearly in the Sphinx 
(1895, p. 185) under the heading "Buddhism 
and Christianity." He says among other 
things: "And as in the Sermon on the Mount 
Jesus refers to Karma in many words and para- 
bles, so also in the woes pronounced on the Gali- 
lean towns (Matt, xi.), in the words as to the 
sin against the Holy Ghost, which cannot be 
forgiven (Matt, xii, 31-32) ; an account shall 
be given of every idle word. "By thy words 
thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou 
shalt be condemned" (Matt, xii, 37) ; in these 
words of Jesus the principle of divine justice is 
unconditionally laid down, and no grace can 
supersede it: a justice all the more terrible in 
that it implies a final, eternal separation on the 
Day of Judgment (Matt, xxv, 46) ; see also the 
Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. 

The inner law of this divine and merciless 
justice is enunciated by Christ in these words: 
"For unto everyone that hath shall be given, 
but from him that hath not shall be taken away 
even that which he hath" (Matt, xxv, 29). 

We thus see that Karma has its place in 
Christianity also, but there is a very important 



An Occultist's Travels. 189 

difference. In Buddhism the principle of the 
divine law of Karma is carried out with definite 
consequences, but in Christianity these conse- 
quences are lacking. This arises from the fact 
that in Buddhism divine justice is an imper- 
sonal, lifeless principle, in Christianity a per- 
sonal, living God. In the one, the principle is 
always the same, in rigid conformity with it- 
self ; in the other, we have the tenderly beating 
heart of a Heavenly Father, who leads his chil- 
dren, according to his own decree, through the 
sufferings of this world to their salvation; in 
the one case, there stretches over mankind, born 
from the dust, the vault of a heaven made rigid 
by eternal justice; in the other, this vault is 
broken by the word of heavenly grace: "Thy 
sins are forgiven thee." 

I once asked the phantom, who called him- 
self Dr. Benton, as to my former incarnations ; 
he answered that he would ask "my soul," and 
tell me next time. I replied that this could 
soon be done; my soul was here. His answer 
was, no; that was an error; my soul was not 
here, but in the "spheres;" it was connected 
with my body by a cord, like a balloon, so that 
I, for instance, as my soul was developed, could 



190 An Occultist's Travels. 

not be drowned. This of course sounds very 
mystical, if not downright absurd. But the 
Alexandrian Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus 
and his teacher, Ammonius Saccas, asserted 
something similar. According to Plotinus, man 
has a double soul, a double Ego: the higher, 
which lives entirely in the supersensible world, 
and the lesser one, which is bound up with the 
body and its activities.* Saccas says on this 
point that the soul is partly on earth and thinks 
by means of the senses, and partly in the super- 
sensible world without mediated thoughts, f 
This, moreover, is a very ancient idea. Whether 
it can be accepted as plausible in view of what I 
have set forth above, and in the present condi- 
tion of our knowledge, I must leave the reader, 
who has followed me so far, to decide according 
to his own judgment. 

On my return to California I had to stop 
four hours in Chicago, while awaiting the de- 
parture of the train for the Pacific Coast. It 

*Plotinus, Enneads (the six groups, each consisting 
of nine books, of selections from his writings edited, 
with four supplements, by his pupil Porphyry), I, i, 10; 
VI, 7, 5- 

fZelJer: Philosophic der Griechen, TIT, 2, p. 456 
(compare Du Prel, Die Philosophie der Mystik, Leip- 
sic, Gunther, 1884, p. 448). 



An Occultist's Travels. 191 

was Sunday, and I walked through the streets 
without any definite plan. At 135 Randolph 
Street I saw a sign: "Madame Seera, the 
Queen of Seers." In order to pass the time, 
I went in. Madame Seera calls herself Clair- 
voyant, Astrologist, and Palmist, and she pos- 
sesses these talents in such a degree that she 
surpasses Madame de Thebes, of Paris. She 
looked at me, and told me things which I had 
to admit were true, to my great astonishment. 
Then she examined the lines of my hand, and 
asked me to allow her to take an impression of 
them, for I had lines which are very rare, and 
promised to send me gratis a complete chart. 
(I have not found these lines of my hand men- 
tioned, even in the important work on palmistry 
of Desbarolles, Les Mysteres de la Main, 
Paris). I received the chart by post, very 
lengthily and carefully drawn out, and must ac- 
knowledge that no one has ever yet read my life 
so correctly as Madame Seera. 

According to statements in her prospectus, 
she has read the hands of President Roosevelt, 
Governor Deneen of Illinois, President Harri- 
son, J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, 
Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, and many other cele- 



192 An Occultist's Travels. 

brated personages. She claims to know nothing 
of spiritism ! I have had a good deal to do with 
palmistry, or chiromancy, and have visited doz- 
ens of so-called palmists, mostly ignorant per- 
sons; Madame Seera and Madame de Thebes 
prove that palmistry is true, but few understand 
it. 

The hand is the chief officer of the soul. The 
Bible says: "Length of days is in her right 
hand, and in her left hand riches and honour" 
(Prov. iii, 16). "Thine hand shall find out all 
thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out 
those that hate thee" (Ps. xxi, 8). "And it 
shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand" 
(Ex. xiii, 9). "Behold I have graven thee 
upon the palms of my hand" (Isa. xlix, 16). 
"In the hands of all men God hath placed some 
sign by which they know their work" (Book of 
Job). Fourteen hundred and thirty- three 
times does the Bible speak of the human hand. 
Thus we find that palmistry is in perfect har- 
mony with the Bible. 

Madame Seera gives the following remark- 
able account of the temple in which she studied 
it: 

"Close to the ancient city of Benares, sit- 



An Occultist's Travels. 193 

uated upon a beautiful hill, in the midst of 
solitude and loneliness, is a cave temple, which 
has been owned and protected by the Joshi 
Priests, who have practised palmistry in all the 
generations from 1000 B.C. to the present day. 

"In this temple, musty with years and mys- 
ticism, are hidden invaluable books on palmis- 
try, written on silver and gold plates. There 
are three maps of the hand on human skin, writ- 
ten in a bright red colour which age and sun 
cannot obliterate. 

"They are supposed to have been written on 
human skin for preservation, as they have been 
preserved in the same manner as the mummies. 
They are finely illustrated, containing great in- 
formation on palmistry, which has been a per- 
fected science with the Hindus from time im- 
memorial. The dates of two of these hands 
are unknown, but one shows 1000 B.C. 

"This cave is the most sacred and holy spot 
to the Hindus, the great men of India, who have 
astonished the world with their psychic power, 
having gained their knowledge at this temple. 
Not only the Hindus themselves, but the most 
celebrated palmists in Europe, such as the well- 



194 An Occultist's Travels. 

known Cheiro and others, have perfected their 
knowledge in this temple." 

Madame Seera gives an honest and truthful 
delineation of future events. Many have al- 
ready come true. For instance, she gives the 
following as having already come to pass: 

"President Roosevelt's nomination, accidents 
in July and October, his miraculous escape 
from death, and his overwhelming victory were 
forecast through a horoscope published in the 
Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

"The great danger which threatened the Czar 
of Russia ; the great disasters on land and sea, 
were forecast in a horoscope cast for Alexis, 
heir to the Imperial throne of Russia, by re- 
quest for the Chicago Evening American and 
published August 27, 1904. 

"The accident to King Edward VII. of 
England, which occurred November 15, 1905, 
was forecast by Madame Seera in an astrological 
horoscope, published June 16, 1905, in the Chi- 
cago Inter-Ocean. 

"The great disaster of San Francisco was 
also forecast by Mme. Seera on February 4, 
1905, in the Evening Post. 



An Occultist's Travels. 195 



Before I finally left the shores of the Pacific 
Ocean, in order, as already stated, to reside in 
the Eastern States, I resolved to undertake the 
long planned voyage to the Hawaiian Islands, 
Japan, China, and the Philippines. 

On April 17, 1907, for the last time for the 
present, I went on board the steamer at Port 
Los Angeles for San Francisco, had a short talk 
with Mr. Miller, who complained of pains in his 
heart, and on April 23 went on board the 
steamship "Korea" of the Pacific Mail Steam- 
ship Company. The "Korea" is only of 12,000 
tons, but she is one of the best boats that cross 
the Pacific. We took seventeen days to get to 
Yokohama, for the steamers of this line call 
at Honolulu, and therefore take a somewhat 
southerly course ; but I had rather travel for 
seventeen days on the sea than three days in a 
train. These steamers have not the almost too 
stately sumptuousness of the Norddeutscher 



196 An Occultist's Travels. 

Lloyd and Hamburg- American lines, and un- 
fortunately there is no music on board, but they 
are very good, and faultless as regards lighting 
and bathrooms. The service is performed by 
Chinamen, who are very different from the 
American waiters, each of whom acts as though 
he were a baron. The after-deck is used only 
by the Chinese, who play all day long — a sort of 
dominoes, dice, and cards — even a roulette was 
to be seen. Dirty, half-naked, smelling of 
opium, they crouch in a circle, and eat their 
rice, meat, etc., out of a common dish with 
sticks. 

On the sixth day we reached Oahu, Hawaiian 
Islands, and stopped for eight hours at Hono- 
lulu. The cocoanut and sago palms, the Royal 
Palm, rice, sugar, etc., grow there. The Moana 
Hotel, situated right by the sea, buried in tropi- 
cal vegetation, brought me nearer to the Nir- 
vana of Buddhism. Black-brown Kanakas, the 
aborigines of the Hawaiian Islands, dived after 
coins like the South Italians at Castellamare on 
the Gulf of Naples, and I stood in wonder in 
the Aquarium, which contains fishes of the 
Southern Seas in quite incredible variety of 
forms and colours. An ichthyologist would have 



An Occultist's Travels. 197 

a good time here. But the tropical sun burnt 
hotly, and I was quite ready to leave these won- 
derful islands. The distance from San Fran- 
cisco to Honolulu is 2100 miles, and from Hon- 
olulu to Yokohama 3445 miles. On May 3 we 
passed the 180th degree of longitude, where we 
skip a whole day, and two days before we 
sighted the Japanese coast a cyclone gripped us, 
and yEolus and Neptune fought hard with each 
other. At night on May 9th we reached Yoko- 
hama, and on the 10th, after a medical examina- 
tion, we went ashore in the Land of the Chrys- 
anthemum, cherry-blossom, and lotus flowers. 

I could easily write a book about my impres- 
sions of travel in Japan and China, but these 
would not be suited to the compass of the pres- 
ent little work, which is mainly concerned with 
metaphysical subjects, and I must therefore be 
brief. 

On landing in Japan the traveller is beset 
by a lot of rickshaws, small two-wheeled car- 
riages which are drawn by a running Japanese ; 
horses are not used, except for military pur- 
poses. In Japan people do everything them- 
selves, and as the Japanese live almost entirely 
on rice, fish, and vegetables, there are very few 



198 An Occultist's Travels. 

cattle, practically no sheep or swine, and there- 
fore little manure except human excrement, the 
smell of which is very offensive to travellers. 
Those who know this eat no raw fruit, such as 
strawberries, etc. Every spot of ground is 
planted with rice, tea, wheat, and barley, even 
on the hills, for the 49,700,000 (nearly) inhab- 
itants have to make all the use they can of the 
162,372 square miles of land, most of it moun- 
tainous, in order to live. 

Yokohama is the second treaty port of Japan, 
and was opened to foreign trade in July, 1859. 
The scenery around is hilly and pleasing, and 
on clear days the snow-crowned summit and 
graceful outlines of Fuji-san are most distinctly 
visible. Beyond the plain on which the town 
is built rises a sort of semi-circle of low hills 
called The Bluff, which is thickly dotted with 
handsome foreign villas and dwelling houses in 
various styles of architecture, all standing in 
pretty gardens. During my stay at Yokohama 
I visited the porcelain manufacturers, and at 
one of them, Kawamoto's, Egg-shell Por- 
celain Manufacturer, 18 Honcho, I had a 
porcelain service made with figures of war- 
riors in old Japanese armour. I then vis- 



An Occultist's Travels. 199 

ited the cloisonne, lacquer, wood-carving 
and bronze exhibits. I was also present at 
a tea ceremonial. The Japanese have no fur- 
niture; people sit on straw mats, and a girl, 
with slow, tripping steps, brings in tea and 
cakes, kneels down in front of the guests and 
places the tea and cakes in front of each with 
continual nodding of her head. I made ac- 
quaintance with some new fruits there; the 
sweet mango fruit, the mangosteen, the Lychee, 
and the Papaia. The cold North knows nothing 
of these fruits of the Orient. 

Except at the Grand Hotel, Yokohama, which 
charges American prices, everything in Japan 
costs about half as much as in the United 
States; but in this hotel one receives the best 
attention. 

In about half an hour by railroad from Yoko- 
hama we reach Kamakura, with the forty-nine 
feet high bronze statue of the Buddha — the 
Dai-Butsu — then the Sacred Island, opposite 
to Enoshima, by a two-wheeled jinrikisha or 
rickshaw drawn by a running Japanese. In the 
capital, Tokio, I admired the wonderful wis- 
terias, with their pendent masses of blue flow- 
ers. Tokio has about 1,819,000 inhabitants, and 



200 An Occultist's Travels. 

I have never in any country seen such an abun- 
dance of children as in Japan. In parts of 
Tokio there are beautiful broad avenues, and 
in the neighbourhood is the palace of the Mi- 
kado, standing on an eminence, surrounded by a 
stone wall and water, with many modern Euro- 
pean buildings. I saw many soldiers, the in- 
fantry resembling the German and the cavalry 
the Trench, and museums containing trophies 
from the Russo-Japanese war. The Imperial 
Hotel meets European and American require- 
ments fairly well. 

I afterwards went into the interior, to 
Miyanoshita. The road to this place is not un- 
like the Swiss country roads, with high moun- 
tains, deep valleys, and noisy brooks. At the 
Fujiya Hotel there one finds every comfort. In 
a chair carried by four Japanese bearers I 
made an excursion to the Hakone Lake, passing 
the Ojigoku, a smoking volcano, like that in the 
Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. On May 18 I 
left the Fujiya Hotel to go to Nagoya; during 
the journey one sees for hours the snow-clad 
Fujiyama (12,365 feet high). This holy 
mountain with its white top, surrounded by 
green meadows, affords a lovely prospect. In 



f An Occultist's Travels. 20! 

Nagoya, during the three days of my stay, I did 
not see a single European. The Temple of Go 
Hyaku Rakan there contains 500 different 
statues of Buddha. Every sculptor thinks that 
his own is the only correct looking one; I also 
saw there the manufacture of cloisonne, that 
wonderful silver work executed on copper. In 
the Misonoza Theatre I saw the Japanese Feast 
of Flowers represented; the Flower-Dance of 
the Geishas is unique, but the Japanese have no 
notion of music. On wooden drums and a kind 
of guitar they make a noise that one would 
gladly run away from. As the Japanese have 
no furniture, the spectators sit in square groups 
of four on straw mats, in the middle of which 
stand the tea-urn and smoking utensils. 

From Nagoya I passed through miles of 
bamboo forest to Kyoto, and put up at the 
Kyoto Hotel. This city is prettily situated, and 
is divided into two halves by the Kamo River. 
Kyoto is celebrated for its dancing girls. Dur- 
ing my visit I was present at a Japanese din- 
ner at one of the most exclusive tea-houses, with 
Geishas and dancing girls in attendance. There 
were ten of us, and as we ought to have taken 
off our shoes, which I did not wish to do, our 






202 An Occultist's Travels. 

shoes were covered with linen over-shoes, and 
we were shown into a room, where we had to 
sit on straw mats with our legs crossed under 
us, which is not so easy to manage. Little 
Geisha girls then brought us a little square 
table, a foot high, with fish in lacquered wooden 
trays, unknown kinds of vegetables in similar 
trays, Japanese candy, and saki (rice spirit). 
Everything was very neat and clean, but we 
could not eat fish and vegetables in lacquered 
trays. Then a Geisha in her pretty costume sat 
down before each guest in order to serve him. 
These twelve to fourteen year old Geishas are 
very inquisitive. They freely handled each 
guest, took off his rings and jewelry and be- 
decked themselves with them. They had little 
mirrors and cosmetics in their kimonos (Jap- 
anese robes). But one easily permits such lib- 
erties from such charming creatures. 

I visited the great Shinto shrines, the Yakasa 
Pagoda, the Dai-Butzu, the San-ju-san-gen-do 
Temple with its thousand images of Kwannon, 
God of Mercy. Each has several heads and 
several arms, so that they can grant all manner 
of wishes. Then there is the Higashi Hong- 
wanji Temple with an enormous rope made of 



An Occultist's Travels. 203 

women's hair, to which 10,000 women are said 
to have given their hair, so that it could be 
used for the erection of the pillars. I have 
never yet seen any country in which the people 
are so contented as they are in Japan ; healthy, 
strong, rosy cheeked, frugal, and always cheer- 
ful. My rickshaw-boy, my human horse, was 
named Mino. Wherever he took me, he ran 
along at a smart trot, always smiling cheerfully, 
waiting patiently when required, and laughing 
whenever he turned to look back at me; and 
when on the last day I gave him the travelling- 
cap I had brought from London, he put it on 
instead of his straw hat, and ran still more 
merrily through the streets, which at most were 
only seven feet wide. 

From Kyoto I made a day's trip to Kara, 
w T hich made the most lasting impression upon 
me, with the exception of Nikko, which I 
saw afterwards. The wonderful, primeval for- 
est roads, where you drive between stone pillars, 
each dedicated to the memory of a deceased per- 
son, with shrines and temples in between, hun- 
dreds of tame deer, which throng around and 
eat out of your hand, then the Japanese in their 
charming costumes, the Shinto Temples, where 



204 An Occultist's Travels. 

I witnessed the sacred dance of young Shinto 
priestesses, the holy horse, which awaits the 
God who will ride on him to the sanctuaries 
which are consecrated to himself, etc. This 
wonderful natural beauty, these centuries-old 
cedars, make a deep impression on the visitor. 

From Nara I went to Kobe, the second largest 
export centre in Japan. I stopped at the Ori- 
ental Hotel. Kobe is the place where the for- 
eigners make most of their purchases. Silks, 
cloisonne enamel, lacquered work, ivory, and 
silver articles are all nearly three times cheaper 
than in the United States, which levy a customs 
duty of 30 to 60 per cent, on these goods. 

I will here speak of Nikko, though I did not 
visit it until after my return from China. Its 
shady woods, its extensive groves and lofty ave- 
nues, its religious air, make Nikko an ideal 
place for the dreamer. Percival Lowell* says : 

"At the farther end rises a building, the like 
of which for richness of effect you have prob- 
ably never beheld nor even imagined. In front 
of you a flight of white stone steps leads up to 
a terrace whose parapet, also of stone, is dia- 

*The Soul of the Far East, Boston and New York, 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1888, 



'An Occultist's Travels. 205 

pered for half its height and open lattice work 
the rest. This piazza gives entrance to a build- 
ing or set of buildings whose every detail chal- 
lenges the eye. Twelve pillars of snow-white 
wood sheathed in part with bronze, arranged in 
four rows, make, as it were, the bones of the 
structure. The space between the centre col- 
umns lies open. The other triplets are webbed 
in the middle, and connected on the sides and 
front by grilles of wood and bronze, forming on 
the outside a couple of embrasures on either 
hand the entrance, in which stand the guardian 
Nio, two colossal demons, Gog and Magog. In- 
stead of capitals, a frieze, bristling with Chinese 
lions, protects the top of the pillars. Above this, 
in place of entablature, rise tier upon tier of 
decoration, each tier projecting beyond the one 
beneath, and the topmost of all terminating in 
a balcony which encircles the whole second 
story. The parapet of this balcony is one mass 
of ornament, and its cornice another row of 
lions, brown instead of white. The second 
story is no less crowded with carving. Twelve 
pillars make its ribs, the spaces between being 
filled with elaborate woodwork, while on top 
more friezes, more cornices, clustered with ex- 



206 An Occultist's Travels. 

crescences of all colours and kinds, and guarded 
by lions innumerable. To begin to tell the de- 
tails of so multifacetted a gem were artistically 
impossible. It is a jewel of a thousand rays, 
yet whose beauties blend into one, as the pris- 
matic tints combine to white. And then, after 
the first dazzle of admiration, when the spirit of 
curiosity urges you to penetrate the centre aisle, 
lo and behold, it is but a gate ! The dupe of un- 
expected splendour, you have been paying court 
to the means of approach. It is only a portal 
after all. For as you pass through you catch a 
glimpse of a building beyond more gorgeous 
still. Like in general to the first, unlike it in 
detail, resembling it only as the mistress may 
the maid. But who shall convince of charm by 
enumerating the feature of a face ! From the 
tiles of its terrace to the encrusted gables that 
drape it as with some rich be jeweled mantle, 
falling about it in the most graceful of folds, it 
is the very Eastern Princess of a building, 
standing in the majesty of her court to give you 
audience. 

A pebbly path, a low flight of stone steps, a 
pause to leave your shoes without the sill, and 
you tread in the twilight of reverence upon 



An Occultist's Travels- 207 

the moss-like mats within. The richness of its 
outer ornament, so impressive at first, is, you 
discover, but prelude to the lavish luxury of its 
interior. Lacquer, bronze, pigments, deck its 
ceiling and its sides in such profusion that it 
seems to you as if art had expanded in the con- 
genial atmosphere into a tropical luxuriance 
of decoration, and grew here as naturally on 
temples as in the jungle creepers do on trees. 

The world-famous temples of Nikko are the 
burial places of the first and third Shoguns of 
the Tokugawa line of the seventeenth century. 
The Red Lacquer Sacred Bridge, these avenues 
of gigantic Cryptomerias, these wonderful tem- 
ples in the midst of primeval forests, this 
dream-wealth of Nature, make Nikko the most 
attractive place in Japan. I stayed at the 
Nikko Hotel, and made an excursion with 
sedan-chairs to Lake Chuzenji — a dream-place. 
I saw the Sacred Horse again in Nikko, and 
again witnessed the sacred dance of the Shinto 
priestesses. 

An intimate friend of mine in Los Angeles, a 
colonel, who travelled in Japan in 1897, told 
me that he had observed the remains of Phallus- 
worship in Japan. As I could not discover any- 



208 An Occultist's Travels. 

thing of such worship, in spite of repeated in- 
quiries, I asked him where he had seen it. His 
reply was as follows : 

"In Nikko, going from the red bridge up the 
road following the river, and about 500 yards 
from the bridge, is a shrine standing on 
wooden piers, a simple, barn-like structure. In 
1897, I saw under the shrine, piled up quite in- 
discriminately, about fifty phalli carved out of 
stone, of different sizes, from normal to heroic. 
Outside the shrine are a lot of stone 'lanterns' 
(so-called), may be ten of them, standing, with 
pedestal, about four feet high. Before the 
phallic worship was suppressed — say in 1878 — 
each 'lantern' contained one of these stone carv- 
ings, placed upright, and the women worshipped 
there. As I examined the ground near by, I 
noticed that the grass was worn away in front 
of some of the lanterns, as though by the tread 
of many feet, leading to the belief that in the 
darkness of night women still worship there. 
At the time of the suppression, the emblems 
were discarded and thrown under the shrine. 
We understood that everywhere in Japan these 
phallic emblems were in use formerly. This 
particular shrine was Buddhist," 



An Occultist's Travels. 209 

I am sorry to say that I was not able to have 
any metapsychical experiences in Japan. As 
regards the religions belief of the Japanese, 
Mime Inness contributed the following very 
interesting article to the "Banner of Light" for 
February 24, 1906: 

KAKMA AND SHINTOISM IN JAPAN. 



When Admiral Togo, after his successive vic- 
tories, took occasion to thank, in the most formal 
way, the spirits of the dead for their assistance 
in the war in which they had lain down their 
earthly lives, to most Americans it seemed an 
act of Eastern barbarism, strangely injected 
into modern life. 

How could a great naval captain like Togo 
be so superstitious, so ignorant ? 

It is, however, not strange that one reared, as 
is every Japanese, in the Shinto philosophy, 
should take occasion, as a thank offering, to rec- 
ognize one of the most prevalent of Japanese 
ideas. 

The Japanese is reared not only upon the 
doctrine of Shinto, which is peculiar to his peo- 
ple, but the Buddhistic doctrines of pre-exist- 



210 An Occultist's Travels. 

ence and Karma enter equally into the make-up 
of his religious life. We in the West have but 
an indistinct idea of pre-existence. Theoso- 
phists maintain the doctrine, but the ordinary 
Christian, especially those reared in Calvinism, 
have spent all their religious lives in an effort 
to save their own individual souls from a here- 
after which is represented to be so horrible that 
escape from it is the one "consummation de- 
voutly to be wished." 

But the Oriental philosophy takes care of all 
this sort of thing in an entirely different way, 
a way which is almost inexplicable to the self- 
seeking Occidental. 

"In the first place," says the Jap, "my own 
soul is not a single thing. It is a term of re- 
proach to me when one tells me derisively, 'I 
can see that you have but one soul/ My soul 
cannot exist for an eternitv hereafter unless 
it has already existed for an eternity before this 
life. 

"Eternity is an endless thing. Nothing can 
be endless if it have a beginning. The Occi- 
dental talks of a life in the future which has no 
end. Then it can have had no beginning; for 
an endless thing with one end is endless. I 







An Occultist's Travels. 211 

must, therefore, have existed from all eternity 
if I am to live to all eternity. 

"Therefore, I know that my soul, in its pre- 
existent states, has passed through many earth- 
lives, has had all the experiences which those 
pre-existing lives imply. It is not, cannot be, a 
single thing, one soul. It is a composite of all 
the experiences of all past eternities through 
which it has lived. In me to-day exist con- 
sciously the souls of all my kindred by hered- 
ity, and no small part of those other lives with 
which I have lived and by contact have partaken 
of. Hence, my ancestors, being those to whom 
I owe, not my existence alone, but all those at- 
tributes which make my soul what it is, are 
certainly worthy of my highest regard and wor- 
ship. 

"Not only this" (and here comes in the Spir- 
itualistic idea), "but these ancestors, as is nat- 
ural, take in me and my living, the deepest in- 
terest. They surround my daily pathway, seek- 
ing in every way they can to enhance for me the 
good and to ward off the bad. What is more 
natural for the parent who dies than to main- 
tain his interest in his child ? You western 
Christians believe in a heaven to which a dying 



212 An Occultist's Travels. 

father goes and shuts from his knowledge every- 
thing in which, two minutes before he breathed 
his last, he was most deeply concerned; or, if 
you believe that he still has knowledge of the 
lives of his children, he is yet powerless to affect 
those lives for good or ill. This is still worse 
than total ignorance, For what is more devil- 
ish, what could be a greater Hell, than to be 
compelled to sit supinely by and see the tortures 
of a child and be powerless to aid? We know 
better than this. When we die and slough off 
the flesh, we do not change. We still love, and 
love implies aid. We still hover near and help 
to bear the burden or share the joy of our chil- 
dren, making it greater by the sharing. 

"So, while we worship our ancestors, we 
know they are worthy of worship. Do you Oc- 
cidentals still wish an angry God to punish sin ? 
He does punish it, not as one angry, but as one 
who is just. Sin is not like the naughtiness of 
a child, to be punished by a slipper. It is a 
breaking of God's laws, which breaking always 
bears its own consequences. If I violate the 
law of gravitation and walk off the roof of the 
house, I fall, not as a punishment for violating 



r An Occultist's Travels. 213 

the law, but because a violation of the law en- 
tails its own consequences. 

"So if I do wrong, I suffer. No pardon, no 
repentance, avails to wash away the sin. It en- 
tails its own punishment, leaves forever its own 
scar. Thereby I am taught not to sin. 

"But the consequence of my violation of 
God's law is that the scar remains. I may not 
work out my own redemption, until death has 
seized me. The consequences of that wrong go 
on just the same, and when next my undying 
soul seeks physical embodiment, the stain of my 
sin is still on it, the law is still operative and 
justice still demands of me the working out of 
my own redemption. The 'sins of the father are 
visited upon the children' is true, not as a pun- 
ishment, but as a simple, just working-out of 
the rule of the law. This is Karma. Evil in 
my life I know is just, not for what I have done 
in this embodiment, but for what I did in an- 
other body. Joy is mine, not always for my 
own merits, but for the good I did when here 
before. Is not this justice ? Is not this right ? 
Does not this explain why life is as it is ? Is 
not this a good and sufficient reason for my an- 
cestor worship?" 



214 An Occultist's Travels. 

This is why the Japanese see so little that is 
attractive in Christianity. This is why they 
are Spiritualists. This is why Shintoism and 
Buddhism are to them the living forces that 
they are. 

This is why this life, seeming such a trifling 
part of the real life, is with so little hesitation 
thrown away by a Japanese in battling for a 
good cause. 

If Western civilization could take a leaf from 
the book of the little yellow men of the islands, 
creeds might suffer, but the real life of Christ 
would be more purely lived, and then indeed 
would "death be swallowed up in victory," be- 
ing no longer the "King of Terrors." 

Mime Inness. 

At Kobe I embarked in the "America Maru," 
a Japanese steamer with an English captain, 
Philip Going, one of the seven worthiest of 
men, and a Japanese crew and Chinese servants, 
in order to go through the Inland Sea to Naga- 
saki. The Inland Sea is universally conceded 
to be the most magnificent sheet of water in the 
world, with a length of about 240 miles. The 
channel in places is so narrow that it will hardly 



An Occultist's Travels. 215 

permit the passing of two ships, and from the 
time the steamer enters it through the Straits 
of Akashi until she passes out through the 
Straits of Shimonoseki it is one gorgeous pan- 
orama. The sea is studded with islands of 
every conceivable shape and size, from the bar- 
ren rock standing up alone in its grandeur to 
large islands artificially terraced from the wa- 
ter's edge to the summit, and all under the high- 
est cultivation. Scene succeeds scene, picture 
follows picture, with such surprising rapidity 
that one can scarcely spare time for meals. Un- 
like most parts of Japan the islands in this sea 
are lightly wooded. There is an unrivalled 
view hereabouts. 

The clear, shallow water of this famous sea, 
picturesquely dotted with beautiful little islands 
— decked with shrines and miniature temples — 
forms as near an approach to Fairyland as can 
be expected in a matter of fact world. A Fairy- 
land, indeed, of islands and temples and trees, 
possessed of a charm which even the picturesque 
Lafcadio Hearn's polished language failed to 
fitly describe. Here is a chance, if taken by 
easy stages, criss-crossing from island to island, 
to see Japan in its pristine beauty. There are 



216 An Occultist's Travels. 

islands here where the foot of the white man has 
never rested. 

The boat takes twenty-eight hours to reach 
Nagasaki, After passing Shimonoseki the boat 
passes through the Tsushima Straits, where 
Togo annihilated the Russian fleet, and comes to 
Nagasaki, with its wonderful harbour and his- 
torical associations. Just in front of the city is 
the island of Deshima, noted as being the scene 
of martyrdom of so many Christians. Not far 
inland are the historic castle of Kumamoto, and 
Kagoshima, the capital of Satsuma province. 
At Nagasaki and Kagoshima one can buy 
specimens of the genuine old Satsuma porce- 
lain, so prized by collectors. 



An Occultist's Travels. 217 



XL 



On May 27, 1907, we began our voyage 
through the Eastern Sea and South China Sea 
to Manila, the capital of the Philippines. The 
voyage lasted three and a half days, and the 
discomforts of this journey will never be for- 
gotten. For five years I lived in an almost trop- 
ical climate in Southern California, but there 
the nights are cool, while in this journey there 
was no cessation of the heat. All day long we 
were under a fiery tropical sun, and at night we 
slept on deck. On the 28th the mountains of 
Formosa rose above the horizon, and on the 
30th the lighthouse at Luzon came into view. 

Manila is an old Spanish city, very hot in 
spite of the tropical vegetation of all kinds, 
among which the mindanao tree with its dark 
red flowers pleased me the most. I made an ex- 
cursion of about two hours to the American bar- 
racks, where the heat was unbearable. The 
natives still live in their straw huts, erected on 



218 An Occultist's Travels. 

four piles, and use boats made of a hollowed-out 
tree trunk. At the "Germinal" cigar factory, 
■which employs 1500 workmen, the very amiable 
manager explained to me all that was worth 
knowing about the manufacture of tobacco, and 
gave besides to each one of our party of ten 
persons a box of choice Manila cigars. 

The Philippines are the sore spot of the 
United States; they are said to have cost up 
to now 400 million dollars for development, and 
bring very little in. The principal articles of 
commerce are hemp, sugar, tobacco, cigars, and 
coffee. They are extremely fruitful, but not yet 
two per cent, of their area is developed. White 
men cannot work there, and the natives are too 
lazy. What is to be done with the Philippines 
is now being much discussed in the American 
papers. They can be reached by a warship 
from Japan in three and a half days, while the 
distance from San Francisco is twenty-eight 
days. I have nothing to do with politics, but I 
cannot help thinking that Japan will some day 
have the Philippines. The Japan Advertiser, 
of Yokohama, published the following on June 
21,1907: 



An Occultist's Travels. 219 

THE DISPOSAL OF THE PHILIPPINES. 



SHOULD THEY BE GIVEN TO JAPAN ? 



The Times New York correspondent in a re- 
cent telegram remarks: 

There is no episode in the history of their 
country which Americans now look back upon 
with more regret than the war with Spain. The 
newspapers do not often care to give expression 
to this feeling, but it is practically universal 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Universal 
also is the belief that the Philippines are the 
biggest white elephant with which the country 
lias ever been burdened, and that the islands 
will never be anything more than a burden. If 
they could be handed over to Japan or handed 
back to Spain without loss of national dignity it 
would be done. This, of course, is impossible, 
but the heartfelt regret of the American people 
for the Spanish adventure can be and is mani- 
fested by the offer of friendship to Spain, which 
it is hoped Spain will accept. 

Writing on this subject in the Contemporary 
Review, Mr. John Foreman contends that the 



220 An Occultist's Travels. 

ultimate destiny of the Philippine Islands 
"may be voluntary or compulsory union with 
Japan. If ever the cloud appearing on the po- 
litical horizon should point to that contingency, 
America could well save her national dignity by 
conceding independence before the appointed 
time, as an act of grace." 

On June 2, still in the "American Maru," I 
left Manila and in forty-two hours arrived at 
Hongkong in China. Black clouds collected into 
masses, and a deluge of rain came down on the 
ship, but it brought no coolness with it. The 
Southern Cross could be seen at night, and on 
the morning of the third day the steamer lay in 
the wondrously beautiful harbour of Victoria, 
Hongkong. 

Hongkong is one of the finest harbours of the 
world, and is also a free port — no customs du- 
ties, no unpleasant medical examination. Eng- 
land has done great things here. In the British 
possessions, such as Vancouver and Hongkong, 
the first things to strike one are the colossal and 
massive public buildings. Ships from all over 
the world lie in the harbour. The Peak rises in 
terraces behind the narrow coast strip, and won- 



An Occultist's Travels. 221 

derfully beautiful is the road leading up to the 
summit, 2000 feet high. There is a splendid 
view from here over the harbour, with its count- 
less ships, and little islands, and even at this 
elevation tropical plants grow. . Indian and Chi- 
nese silk is the principle article of commerce, 
and is mostly in the hands of Indians ; the mili- 
tary and police forces also consist of Indians, 
with black frizzled beards and wearing turbans. 
Sedan chairs and rickshaws are generally used 
here. One of the things that impressed me most 
was the remarkable Parsee cemetery. There are 
10,000 Europeans and about 200,000 Chinese 
dwelling in Hongkong, and the population in- 
cludes Turks, Mahometans, Hindoos, Javanese, 
Japanese, Malays, Parsees, Cingalese, Portu- 
guese, and other races. I stopped at the King 
Edward Hotel, a gigantic building. 

Erom Hongkong I made an excursion by the 
steamship "Kinshan" of the Hongkong, Canton 
and Macao Steamboat Company, to Canton. 
The voyage took about eight hours, up the Pearl 
River, and here I saw for the first time a real 
Chinese city. 

Canton has abomt three million inhabitants; 
countless sampans (small flat-bottomed boats) 



222 An Occultist's Travels. 

lie in the river, on which about 200,000 people 
live, marry, and die, and some of them never 
set foot on firm ground. We went through the 
city in carrying-chairs, and the smell of the 
place was horrible. 

All the trade is carried on in the streets, 
which are only about seven feet wide, so that we 
were often unable to get either forward or back- 
ward. I visited the Temple of Five Hundred 
Genii, the Water Clock, the Temple of Horrors 
with its swarms of beggars and fortune-tellers. 
In this temple Chinese tortures are represented 
by means of figures. Nothing worse was ever 
invented by the mediaeval Inquisitors. One sees 
the delinquents thrown naked into boiling oil, 
or pinned down to the ground with an iron fork. 
Other figures show the skin being torn from the 
living body of the condemned man, etc. I then 
visited the execution ground, a narrow, dreary, 
dirty spot in the middle of the city. The execu- 
tioneer, a tall, half -naked Chinaman, showed me 
the axe with which he had only five days before 
beheaded a condemned man. A dead man's 
skull lay under one stone, and a jawbone full of 
teeth under another. A place full of horrors! 
I tried in vain to take this executioner with 



An Occultist's Travels. 223 

my kodak; he made off as soon as I tried to 
photograph him. It is an interesting fact that 
the Chinese will not allow themselves to be 
photographed; even the bearers of our chairs 
turned away when we pointed the camera at 
them. Every Chinese cherishes the hope that he 
will some day be rich, and does not wish to be 
reminded of his former poverty.* 

Canton is the place for the purchase of silk, 
ivory, linen, and jade (a green stone, only found 
in China and Burma). Between the temples 
one sees the panorama of the open shops, streets 
of silk and jade and jewelers' shops; weavers' 
dens and gold-beaters' caves; shoe shops, cabi- 
net shops, meat and cook shops on either side. 
Unknown cookery simmers, sputters and scents 
the air. Dried ducks hang by half-yard-long 
necks, and a queer flat bit of dried meat declares 
itself by the long, thin tail curled like a grape 
tendril, to be the rat. The rat is in the market 
everywhere, alive in cages, fresh or dried on 

*Is there not another and an occult reason for this? 
When we remember that one of the processes of witch- 
craft, known _ in France as envoutement, consists in 
sticking pins into an image of the person intended to 
be harmed, it is evident that there is a widespread be- 
lief that the possession of the portrait confers a for- 
midable power over the person himself. — (Translator's 
Note.) 



224 An Occultist's Travels. 

meat-shop counters, and dried ones are often 
bought as souvenirs of a day in Canton and 
proof of the often-denied rat story. Theatres 
are many; shops of theatrical wardrobes are 
endless in one quarter; dealers in old costumes 
abound, and there are pawn shops and curio 
shops without end. 

The Chinese are fanatical, and I was glad to 
be back again on the "Kinshan," which started 
on her return voyage to Hongkong at night, 
with the Southern Cross still shining above us. 

On June 11 I re-embarked in the " America 
Mara," and in fifty-three hours reached Shang- 
hai, passing between the Chinese coast and the 
w^est side of Formosa, and into the Yellow Sea, 
with its numerous islands and countless fishing 
boats ; a thick bank of fog forced us to stop for 
an hour before we reached Woosung. Here the 
steamer stopped, and a steam launch took the 
passengers off and conveyed them up the Yang- 
tse-Kiang River to Shanghai in an hour and a 
half. The nearer we got to Shanghai, the more 
interesting the prospect became. Warships 
from all over the world lie here, always ready 
for attack. 

These powerful fleets of England, Germany, 



An Occultist's Travels. 225 

Trance, America, and Japan form an imposing 
sight, but they are necessary on account of the 
fanaticism of the Chinese people. Shanghai is 
called the Paris of the East, and the European 
portions of the city are very pretty, the Ger- 
man club-house being especially noticeable. I 
stayed at the Astor House, which can be well 
recommended. Generally speaking, an epicure 
should not come to China ! In Shanghai there 
are English, American, and French colonies, 
each of which has its own police force. 

During a carriage excursion into the neigh- 
bouring country, I saw dozens of coffins, 
wrapped about with straw, standing in the 
fields. The Chinese inject a fluid into the bod- 
ies of the dead, which preserves them for a long 
time, and after a year they put stones around 
the coffin and leave the dead man on his own 
former property. 

I left again on the 15th of June, crossed the 
Yellow Sea, and came again to Nagasaki on the 
17th. A hundred and eighty men of the crew 
had their pulses examined for fever, and we 
first-class passengers were thoroughly inspected ; 
this is always done in Japanese ports. Then 
we went through the beautiful Inland Sea to 



226 An Occultist's Travels. 

Kobe, and after having been forced by a ty- 
phoon to anchor for eight hours in Osaka Bay, 
we once more arrived at Yokohama, where I 
left the "America Maru" with her most amiable 
captain. 

Margaret MacLean has recently published a 
little book, Chinese Ladies at Home (Metho- 
dist Publishing House, Tokio, 1906), in which 
she writes as follows : 

"Taking it on the whole, I do not like the 
Chinese, and loathe the country, but could not 
help feeling sorry for the tremendous hold su- 
perstition has on them. The evil spirit is a ter- 
rible creature. A creature constantly needing 
to be outwitted; fortunately, he is easily de- 
ceived. It always puzzled me that the evil 
spirit's influence could be deemed so powerful 
when he is so easily deceived. Spirit-walls are 
built in front of doors. The evil one can see, or 
at least knows, that the door is there, but can 
have no knowledge of the wall that protects it, 
for as he can go only in straight lines he at- 
tempts to enter the door and goes bang up 
against the wall and shoots off down the street ; 
again, if he tries to slide down the ridge of the 
roof he is shot into the air by the ridge being 



An Occultist's Travels. 227 

curved upward. It would seem as though he 
were a shuttlecock, which must constantly be 
kept moving, or disaster will come. A boy will 
wear an earring so that the evil spirit will think 
he is a girl and not worth venting his evil influ- 
ence upon. At a certain time, New Year, I 
think, the evil spirit can get beyond the spirit- 
wall to the very door of the house, but there 
hangs a mirror in which he sees his ugly self, 
and thinking it is another evil spirit, and that 
he will be caught trespassing, he hurries away. 
Fire-crackers and noise will also frighten him, 
and as noise is cheap it is plentifully used. 
Judging from the population of the country the 
temples are not much frequented by worship- 
pers — notice I say worshippers, for they are 
much frequented by beggars, and buyers and 
sellers, and barbers. I could see now what 
Jesus did when He went into the Temple and 
cast out all those that sold and bought. The 
temples are dirty, untidy, and full of rubbish. 
The gods are sometimes out of repair. 

a A god out-at-elbows, so to speak, or looking 
seedy, cannot inspire high thoughts, but he is 
all the people have to turn to and the fact that 
they turn to him even in his painfully made-by- 



£28 An Occultist's Travels. 

men condition, shows their hearts are longing 
for something beyond this world and greater 
than themselves. 

"During my entire visit to China I never 
wished to compare the Chinese to the Japanese ; 
to me they seemed so totally different. Indeed, 
the Chinese in many ways could be compared 
to us more correctly than to the Japanese. The 
manner of the Chinese has more of our brusque- 
ness than it has the graciousness of the Japan- 
ese. Their houses, too, are so totally different 
from those of their island neighbours that com- 
parisons can not be made, although differences 
can be stated, and so with the temples. When 
it is said that they are both heathen, and both 
have many gods in common, then the resem- 
blance ends. In a Japanese temple there is a 
sacred stillness that in itself is beneficial, and 
every place is clean. If cleanliness be next to 
godliness, then the Chinese temples are far, far 
from godliness. The noises of buyers and sell- 
ers arguing the price, the noise of hawkers, the 
din of the general uproar is inappropriate, to 
say the least. 

"The Temple of the Eight Hundred Gods' 
seemed not so much a temple as a repository for 



An Occultist's Travels. 229 

gods. All the temples I saw needed repairing, 
but were neglected except this one, whose needs 
were receiving attention. Most of the gods in 
this temple had kindly benevolent counte- 
nances, making it a much pleasanter place to 
visit. The god of fire had a bright red face and 
three eyes — the third being in his forehead and 
at right angles to the other two. Most of the 
peculiar things about the gods have a reason, so 
when I noticed one with a black hand I in- 
quired. Very often these inquiries reveal inter- 
esting history, but this time the answer was that 
he was being repaired and when finished the 
hand would be a more natural colour for that 
divinity. The entrance to this temple was a 
perfect circle built of stone beautifully carved. 
In China, the outside walls of temples are 
Tteually painted pink, or yellow, so wherever 
those coloured walls are seen a temple is indi' 
cated, although there may be temples with walls 
unpainted. 

"In all their Guild Houses they have a tem- 
ple, but these cannot be classed as public tem- 
ples. The only Guild House I was in was the 
Shansi Bankers' Guild House in Shanghai, 
which is said to be the finest specimen of Chi- 



230 An Occultist's Travels. 

nese architecture in that city. It is certainly 
very beautiful. The courtyards, made of stone, 
and with octagonal gates, make excellent photo- 
graphs. When one sees these typical Chinese 
doorways for the first time, one exclaims Bow 
Oriental V and they continue to strike one as 
genuinely picturesque. Entering the reception 
hall, with its tables, chairs, scrolls, and opium 
couches, one finds everything clean. Now, a 
clean place is so rare that it is worthy of com- 
ment. As this is a bankers' guild, the god of 
wealth occupies a prominent place along with 
his ministers, 'Invite Riches' and 'Gain Mar- 
ket.' The shrine is red lacquered, touched here 
and there with gold, and all the accessories for 
temple worship are of the finest and kept in per- 
fect condition. 

"Ancestral worship is the basis of Chinese 
religious belief. The spirits that pass after 
death into the other world have necessities, and 
want comforts; and so the faithful descend- 
ants of the dead have need to send them houses, 
boats, clothing, sedan chairs, and money. It is 
a make-believe offering, for the luxuries be- 
stowed upon the spirits are in the form of paper 
models, or emblems. These paper things are 



An Occultist's Travels. 231 

burnt and their substance floats away in smoke, 
to the grateful acceptance of the expectant 
dead. That which a Chinaman desires, above 
all else, is a son to keep green his memory and 
attend to his wants in the next world; and, be- 
fore even these, to give his body an appropriate 
burial. This service is not all unselfish on the 
part of the son, for Ancestral worship includes 
the idea that if the son be unfaithful to his 
father calamity will befall him. 

"China is awakening to her situation. We 
fear the yellow peril. China fears the white 
peril. A cartoon published in a Chinese paper 
shows why they fear the white peril. In the 
north is the Russian bear; in the centre the 
English bull-dog; in the south-east the Yankee 
eagle; in the south the French frog; while 
about Formosa is Japan's lasso; and around 
Shangtung are a line of German sausages." 



232 An Occultist's Travels. 



XIII. 

On June 29, 1907, I left Japan by the 
steamship "Siberia" of the Pacific Mail, and 
on July 8 reached Honolulu, and on the 14th 
San Francisco, after having had two Fourths of 
July, as the 180th degree of longitude was 
passed on that day. 

When I arrived at San Francisco the city 
was looking dismal; a car strike of three 
months' duration had paralyzed all business, so 
that Mr. Miller expressed the intention of sell- 
ing out his business and going to ISTew York or 
Paris ; but I went on after a fortnight to Chi- 
cago and thence to Lily Dale, to recuperate in 
the woods of that charming spot from the exer- 
tions of my journey in the Orient, and to have 
some further occult experiences. 

This time I met Mr. W. J. Colville there, 
whose new book, Universal Spiritualism (New 
York, R. F. Fenno & Company), had just ap- 
peared. I have never heard so distinguished a 



r An Occultist's Travels. 233 

teacher of Spiritualism as he is. Mrs. Rich- 
mond, Mr. Oscar A. Edgerly, Mr. J. Clegg 
Wright, are excellent speakers, but they do not 
come up to Mr. Colville. His book, to which I 
have just referred, is excellent, even though I 
regret to have to say that he has almost entirely 
passed over the German spiritualist literature, 
as represented by such men as Dr. Carl du 
Prel and Baron Hellenbach, who are hardly 
surpassed by any writers in the world. 

There were also some good psychometrists at 
Lily Dale, such as Georgia Gladys Cooley, Mrs. 
Susanne Harris, etc. It would seem as though 
it was necessary for these psychics to have a 
large circle around them, in order to give good 
tests, for in private sittings they . were not so 
reliable as in public ones at which dozens of sit- 
ters were present. In the Forest Temple Meet- 
ings, presided over by Mrs. A. G. Devereaux, 
Mrs. Susanne Harris gave some striking proofs 
of her mediumship. The amiability of the 
chairwoman contributes greatly to the success 
of these meetings, and so does that of Mr. John 
D. Lillie, chairman of the Auditorium gather- 
ings, promoting good feeling all round. 

There were also some mediums for materiali- 



234 An Occultist's Travels. 

zations there, but when I saw at a seance with 
Mr. J. phantoms appear wearing paper crowns, 
and found that his cabinet had a double hinge, 
so that the door could be opened even when it 
was locked, I consider that such mediums can 
make no claim to confidence. I should recom- 
mend the directors not to allow any physical 
medium in the camp whom they had not previ- 
ously tried under test conditions. The Theoso- 
phists would then have less foundations for 
many of their objections to Spiritualism. The 
late William Q. Judge, General Secretary of 
the American Section of the Theosophical So- 
ciety, expressed some of these objections in his 
work, The Ocean of Theosophy, published by 
The Path, 144 Madison Avenue, New York, 
1893, p. 149: 

"I. At no time have these spirits given the 
laws governing any of the phenomena, except 
in a few instances, not accepted by the cult, 
where the Theosophical theory was advanced. 
As it would destroy such structures as those 
erected by A. J. Davis, these particular spirits 
fell into discredit, 

"II. The spirits disagree among themselves, 
one stating the after-life to be very different 



An Occultist's Travels. 235 

from the description by another. These disa- 
greements vary with the medium and the sup- 
posed theories of the deceased during life. One 
spirit admits reincarnation and others deny it. 

"III. The spirits have discovered nothing in 
respect to history, anthropology, or other impor- 
tant matters, seeming to have less ability in that 
line than living men; and although they often 
claim to be men who lived in older civilisations, 
they show ignorance thereupon, or merely re- 
peat recently published discoveries. 

"IV. In these forty years no rationale of 
phenomena or of development of mediumship 
has been obtained from the spirits. Great 
philosophers are reported as speaking through 
mediums, but utter only drivel and merest com- 
monplaces. 

"V. The mediums come to physical and 
moral grief, are accused of fraud, are shown 
guilty of trickery, but the spirit guides and con- 
trols do not interfere to either prevent or save. 

"VI. It is admitted that the guides and con- 
trols deceive and invite to fraud. 

"VII. It is plainly to be seen through all 
that is reported of the spirits that their asser- 
tions and philosophy, if any, vary with the 



236 An Occultist's Travels. 

medium and the most advanced thought of liv- 
ing spiritualists. From all this and much more 
that could be adduced, the man of materialistic 
science is fortified in his ridicule, but the the- 
osophist has to conclude that the entities, if 
there be any communicating, are not human 
spirits, and that the explanations are to be 
found in some other theories." 

Mr. Judge says further: 

"Materialisation of a form out of the air, in- 
dependent of the medium's physical body, is a 
fact! Three explanations are offered: First, 
that the astral body of the living medium de- 
taches itself from its corpus and assumes the 
appearance of the so-called spirit; for one of 
the properties of the astral matter is capacity 
to reflect an image existing unseen in ether. 
Second, the actual astral shell of the deceased — 
wholly devoid of his or her spirit and con- 
science — becomes visible and tangible when the 
condition of air and ether is such as to so alter 
the vibrations of the molecules of the astral shell 
that it may become visible. The phenomena of 
density and apparent weight are explained by 
other laws. Third, an unseen mass of electrical 
and magnetic matter is collected, and upon it is 



An Occultist's Travels. 237 

reflected out of the astral light a picture of any 
desired person either dead or living. This is 
taken to be the 'spirit' of such persons, but it is 
not, and has been justly called by H. P. Bla- 
vatsky, 'a psychological fraud/ because it pre- 
tends to be what it is not." 

After the experiments of Professor Crookes 
with Florence Cook, those of Professor Riehet 
and many others with Eusapia Paladino, after 
the experiences with Miller described in this 
book, and the extensive literature on materiali- 
sations by learned and accurate observers, there 
is only one answer to be given to the above three 
theosophical explanations of materialisations : 
He who can understand it, let him understand 
it ; let him who is too stupid leave it alone. 

Such are the principal objections raised by 
Theosophy against Spiritualism. I may spare 
myself the trouble of refuting them in detail by 
extracts from spiritualist authors, seeing that 
they have already been answered by Professor 
Brofferio and Privy Councillor Aksakof; the 
former has given a detailed reply to them. I 
grant that such objections may apply to a large 
number of mediums, but after eliminating cases 
of fraud and of animism, there remain facts 



238 An Occultist's Travels. 

upon which Aksakof has laid much emphasis, 
and which necessarily imply spirit action. In 
this respect my experience has been the same as 
his: "As years went by/' he says, "the weak 
points of Spiritualism became more evident and 
more numerous. The insignificance of the com- 
munications, the poverty of their intellectual 
content, and finally the fraud, etc., in short, a 
host of doubts, objections, and aberrations of 
every kind, greatly increased the difficulties of 
the problem. Such impressions were well cal- 
culated to discourage one, if on the other hand 
we had not had at our disposal a series of in- 
disputable facts." 

Mr. Cromwell Varley, the well-known elec- 
trician, once asked the spirits why they had 
never revealed any new scientific knowledge. 
They replied, very plausibly, that for this pur- 
pose they would need a scientifically trained 
medium, capable of expressing scientific ideas 
intelligibly. Varley calculated that on an aver- 
age there would only be a chance of obtaining a 
scientific medium once in ten generations. 

I willingly recognize that Spiritualism has 
serious faults; more than once I have gone 
home from spiritualistic seances, completely 



An Occultist's Travels. 239 

disheartened, like Hermann Handrieh, who re- 
cently wrote: "I know of spirits who for some 
decades have made their bow before very mixed 
audiences of the curious two or three times, or 
even more, a week; these are spirit controls in 
evening dress, Indians in war-paint, uttering 
stereotyped phrases; others who pass to-day for 
such and such a sister, betrothed, wife, etc., 
and to-morrow for quite another. These are 
beings who must be regarded with suspicion, 
who lend themselves to feelings of every kind. 
It is certain that, under such conditions, inter- 
course between this world and the other is aim- 
less and indeed not at all desirable. Total 
annihilation of individuality would be prefer- 
able to a life of vampirism and borrowed char- 
acters of this sort." 

E. von Hartmann {Die Geisterhypothese des 
Spiritismus, Leipzig, 1891) says much the 
same thing. On the other hand, I have myself 
come into contact with spirits whose lofty ex- 
pressions always impressed me. Moreover, we 
read in Mme. d'Esperance's book, Shadowland, 
that her spirit control, Humnor Stafford, talked 
with Englishmen of science on scientific ques- 
tions, and taught them things that were new to 



240 An Occultist's Travels. 

them. This depends principally on the charac- 
ter of the medium and of the sitters. The law 
of attraction plays the principal part, even here, 
in great measure! So long as mediums were 
persecuted, like the late Valesca Topfer and 
Anna Rothe, and almost all others in Europe, 
there is not much to be hoped for, seeing that 
sensitiveness cannot easily accommodate itself 
to the opposition of sceptics — scarcely to dis- 
trust, much less to violence — and without sen- 
sitiveness there can be no phenomena! Cer- 
tainly the unlimited liberty which prevails in 
America has produced a crowd of fraudulent 
mediums who think of nothing but gaining 
money by their tricks. 

Theosophy, moreover, only gives us inward 
"revelations," which may be of greater value, 
but may also be of less, than those of Spiritual- 
ism ; there is no sense in speaking of the revela- 
tions of spiritualistic phenomena as being of 
less value than those of Theosophy. The differ- 
ence between them is indisputable. Experi- 
ment alone can convince the world of individual 
survival; this is a view that du Prel communi- 
cated to me as his own, in a private letter, as far 
back as 1893. 



An Occultist's Travels. 241 

On September 16th, 1907, the Osservatore 
Romano, the official organ of the Vatican, pub- 
lished an Encyclical on "Modernism in the 
Faith. " It is really an elaboration of the syl- 
labus published a few weeks before. 

The encyclical sets forth that modernism is a 
serious danger to the Church, refers in detail 
to the various features of modernism and con- 
demns it as dangerous in philosophy, faith, the- 
ology, history, criticism and reform, and ar- 
rives at the conclusion that modernism is a 
synthesis of all heresy and must logically lead 
to atheism. 

The encyclical makes the following provi- 
sions : 

First — The teaching of philosophy, positive 
theology, etc., is to be carried on in the Church 
schools and universities, but in a Catholic spirit. 

Second — Modernists are to be removed from 
professorships and the direction of educational 
institutions. 

Third — The clergy and faithful are not to be 
allowed to read modernist publications. 

Fourth — A committee of censorship is to be 
established in every diocese to pass upon the 



242 An Occultist's Travels. 

publications which the clergy and faithful shall 
be permitted to read. 

Fifth — The encyclical of the late Pope Leo 
XIII. prohibiting the clergy from assuming the 
direction of publications without their bishop's 
permission, and providing for supervision of the 
work of ecclesiastical writers, is confirmed. 

Sixth — Ecclesiastical congresses, except on 
rare occasions, are prohibited. 

Seventh — A council is to be constituted in 
every diocese to combat modern errors. 

Books are not to be published without per- 
mission from the authorities. Similar enact- 
ments were issued by the Archbishop Berthold 
of Mainz in 1486, Pope Alexander VI. in 1501, 
and Leo X. in 1515. The Council of Trent not 
only ordered a strict censorship to be main- 
tained, but also commanded that an Index 
should be published of books the reading of 
which was prohibited. This Index Librorum 
prohibitorum appeared in 1564 along with the 
Decreta et Canones Ooncilii Tridentini, and 
large numbers of works published since that 
time have been "placed on the Index." Smaller 
numbers of Kant's and Lessing's works have not 



An Occultist's Travels. 243 

been sold, because they were on the Index. Or- 
thodoxy would now appear to be incompatible 
with free research, free exercise of thought. 
Not, indeed, universally incompatible, but only 
in those matters in which they might lead to 
conflict with the teachings of the Church; but, 
of course, theology is just one of those subjects. 
If a theologian wishes to investigate freely, he 
must leave the Catholic Church. An astrono- 
mer, a physicist, a zoologist, a biologist, an his- 
torian, so long as he confines himself strictly to 
the scientific aspect of his subject, has no need 
to leave it. 

The naive idea that there can be a man or a 
human authority which is armed by God with 
authority to decide with unfailing certainty be- 
tween truth and error in matters of religion and 
ethics, and that the Bishop of Rome for the time 
being is that man, cannot be upheld in the pres- 
ent state of our historical and psychological 
knowledge. 

Metapsychism (Spiritualism) and the em- 
ployment of animal magnetism are unreservedly 
condemned by the Catholic Church. 
"Viele Frosche bequaken den Fernhintreffer 
Apollo ; 



244 An Occultist's Travels* 

Doch der Gott schwebt leicht uber die Siimpfe 
hinweg. ' ' * — Platen. 

*Many frogs croak at Apollo darting down from 
afar; but the God sweeps easily over the marshes and 
away. 



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